(Bloomberg) — French farmers’ unions threatened to block highways around Paris on Monday after government efforts to defuse recent protests with promises of additional aid fell short.
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The country’s powerful FNSEA union, along with the Young Farmers union, has called for a “siege” of the capital even as Prime Minister Gabriel Attal pledged further support during a visit to farmers on Sunday.
“We’re stepping up the pressure because we’ve realized that when it’s far from Paris, the message doesn’t get through,” Arnaud Rousseau, the head of FNSEA, said on RTL radio Monday. “Our aim isn’t to annoy or make life difficult for the French, our aim is to put pressure on the government so that we can quickly find a way out of the crisis.”
Farmers have been choking roadways for more than a week to protest higher production costs and stringent European regulations. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Sunday ordered “significant” police presence in the Paris region to prevent blockades at airports and the Rungis wholesale food market and protect entry into the city.
About 15,000 police will be deployed to stop tractors from entering Paris and other big French cities, the minister said.
Protests over issues from rising fuel costs to shrinking subsidies spread from Poland and Romania to western Europe in recent weeks, while far-right parties across Europe are latching onto the unrest ahead of European Parliament elections in June.
Farmers in Belgium have blocked several highways in the country, including a portion of the ring road that encircles Brussels.
Read more: Protests by Angry Farmers Spread Across Europe: Supply Lines
France held an emergency inter-ministerial meeting Sunday evening to discuss the situation.
Government pledges have “evidently not been enough given everything that’s going on on the roads,” FNSEA head Rousseau said on BFM TV.
Attal on Sunday promised measures to address what farmers see as unfair competition and issues with the transfer of farm properties, days after pledging to reverse a plan to raise taxes on farming fuel and issue big fines to companies that don’t respect rules on price negotiations. He has reiterated France’s opposition to a major trade agreement between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur.
Further measures for winegrowers, including those hit by mildew-related losses, will also be announced this week, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said.
“We will continue to work with the farmers’ representatives,” Fesneau said on France 2 on Monday, adding that he can “attest to the determination of the government to exit the crisis and present concrete solutions.”
–With assistance from Samy Adghirni, Valentine Baldassari and Kevin Whitelaw.
(Updates with police deployment, comments from Fesneau and Rousseau)
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