FRANCE VOWS RAPID AID AS FARMERS PROTEST
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised more aid for French agriculture Tuesday and vowed to shield it from “unfair competition” in an attempt to appease protesting farmers, but many appeared unmoved by his efforts as they blocked major roads around Paris for a second day.
The barricades of tractors and bales of hay caused miles of traffic bottlenecks in the Paris region, but protesters have not encircled the city. Neither have they crippled the French capital itself, which has experienced only limited disruptions.
Still, the farmers have become a growing thorn in the French government’s side as it struggles to respond to a wide-ranging mix of demands on farming subsidies, environmental regulations and foreign competition — to name only a few.
“Our agriculture is an asset: not only because it feeds us, in the truest sense of the word, but because it is one of the foundations of our identity and traditions,” Attal said in his first major policy speech since his appointment by President Emmanuel Macron this month.
“There must be a French agricultural exception,” he added in a wide-ranging presentation of his government’s plans before France’s lower house of Parliament, an appearance scheduled before the protests spread last week.
But Attal also acknowledged that there was no onesize-fits-all answer to the crisis, even as Macron vowed Tuesday to press the farmers’ demands at an upcoming European Union summit.
Whether farmers will keep up their barricades for weeks or merely days is unclear. On Tuesday, authorities were forced to close off whole sections of at least nine major highways around the capital because of the protests, sometimes for several miles.
Protesting farmers also blocked roads near Lyon, dumped hay or manure in front of government buildings in several towns, and briefly blocked a handful of supermarkets accused of buying farm produce under its production costs. Farmers also tried to block access to the main airport serving Toulouse by setting bales of hay on fire.
On Tuesday, Attal made a handful of new announcements. Delayed European farming subsidies will be paid out by March 15, he promised, cattle farmers will get new tax breaks, and wine growers will get an emergency aid package by the end of the week. The government will announce additional measures in the coming days, he added.