PARIS (AP) — Growing protests by French farmers moved closer to Paris on Thursday, with tractors running and roads closed in many regions of the country, increasing pressure on the government to take action to protect the influential agricultural sector from foreign competition , bureaucracy, rising costs and low wages for the most disadvantaged producers.
The traffic disruptions, the straw bale barricades, the smelly dumping of agricultural waste outside government offices and other measures have quickly become the first major crisis facing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was appointed just two weeks ago by President Emmanuel Macron in the hope of reviving his government.
Macron's opponents are using the mobilizations to criticize his government's leadership ahead of the European elections scheduled for June. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose Rassemblement National party is doing well in polls, blamed free trade agreements, imports and bureaucracy for the sector's problems.
“The worst enemies of farmers are in this government,” he said on Thursday.
Among the roads hit by traffic jams on Thursday morning was a highway west of the French capital. “We are getting closer and closer to Paris,” farmer David Lavenant told BFM-TV.
The images broadcast by the broadcaster from Agen in the southwest of the country showed a supermarket flooded by a thick stream of mud. There were road blockades and other mobilizations in other parts of the country.
For her part, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen opened a roundtable in Brussels to try to give agriculture a new direction, hoping to address some of the grievances of protesters across the bloc's 27 countries.
“We all agree that the challenges are undoubtedly increasing,” von der Leyen said. “Be it through external competition, excessive internal regulation, climate change, biodiversity loss or population decline, to name a few.”
There have also been agricultural protests in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania in recent weeks.
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