Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is expected to grant new concessions to farmers to quell the protests that gripped the French capital on Monday.
The French government is preparing further concessions to ease tensions after protesting farmers blocked eight highways leading to Paris on Monday.
Farmers have a list of grievances, including that working in agriculture has become too difficult and not profitable enough.
France’s new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will address the French House of Commons on Tuesday, setting out his government’s priorities and proposing new support for the agricultural sector.
This will be another test for Attal, who is in his first month in office after farmers deemed insufficient agricultural promotion measures he announced last week. The 34-year-old prime minister promised further support measures.
On Monday, protesting farmers surrounded Paris with traffic barricades, using hundreds of sawmill tractors and piles of hay bales to block highways leading to the French capital, illegally attacking They tried to put pressure on the government about the future of their country’s shaky industry. The aftermath of the Ukraine war.
For the time being, the protests have no end in sight.
“There is complete determination,” said Arnaud Rousseau, president of FNSEA, a major and powerful agricultural union, who was received by Attal yesterday afternoon and announced that negotiations with the government are continuing.
In an interview with Europe 1 radio, Rousseau said the government needed a “change of direction” and “symbolic emergency measures”. He explained that the impression he received from the Prime Minister yesterday was that he was “ready to make further progress on all issues”.
The farmers have publicly said their aim is to block access to Europe’s largest food market, Rungis, about 15 kilometers from Paris, and have managed to evade attempts by police to block them.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin, who mobilized 15,000 police officers in response to the protests, has warned since the weekend that he will not allow this to happen.
But Prime Minister Darmanin urged police not to intervene in the so-called “siege” blockades of Paris and the rest of the country, of which there are dozens, unless there is a threat to property or people.
siege of paris
The blockade of major roads around Paris, where the Summer Olympics will be held in six months’ time, and protests across France are shaping up to be another difficult week for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who has been in office for less than a month.
Protesters said Attal’s attempts last week to promote agriculture fell short of demands to make food production more profitable, easier and fairer.
Farmers responded on Monday by deploying convoys of tractors, trailers and even rumble harvesters in what they called a “siege” of Paris in a bid to win more concessions. Some demonstrators brought food, water and tents to stay at the barricades if the government did not back down.
Transport authorities in the Paris region reported road closures on the A1 motorway north of Paris’ main international airport, the A4 near the Disneyland theme park east of Paris, and other normally busy roads.
Arnaud Rousseau, president of the influential FNSEA agricultural union, told RTL radio: “Our aim is not to cause trouble to the French people or to ruin their lives.” “Our aim is to put pressure on the government to quickly find a solution to the crisis.”
Farmers in neighboring Belgium also set up barricades blocking traffic on some major roads, including those leading to the capital Brussels. Most of the protests have taken place in the country’s French-speaking regions.
