Farmers’ protests in France are not stopping, but are expanding, blocking some of the country’s main arteries, and on Wednesday, January 24, they reached Brussels to make their demands known. They criticize President Emmanuel Macron’s Transalpine government, as well as European institutions that are guilty of imposing too high and expensive environmental standards that fall on the shoulders of the rural world. Similar demonstrations have been held in Germany, Romania and Poland for weeks. Despite calls from their Alpine counterparts, farmers in Spain and Italy remain silent for now.
France blocked by tractors
They closed the main access road to the port of Calais for lorries carrying goods bound for the UK in the late morning. Protesters from rural areas, the agency reported France PresseThey “block access to all goods but allow tourist vehicles to pass” to the port ring road. This is only the latest in a series of tractor blockades in France, where protests that began last week in Occitanie in the south-west of the country have now spread to many parts of the Hexagon. Hundreds of tractors have occupied the A10 motorway in Charente-Maritime since this morning; On the Haute Garonne side, around ten tractors and around fifty farmers have been blocking part of the highway since Tuesday, January 23; instead there are 250 tractors occupying the Bordeaux ring road, the focal point between Paris and Spain; 70 tractors occupied the Autoroute du Soleil in southeastern France.
Cuts to subsidies for fuel pollution
Many complain of “unsustainable bureaucratic practices” and subsidy cuts, and are angry above all at the government’s move to increase taxes on agricultural diesel. Considered a highly polluting fuel, farmers use it taking advantage of tax breaks. Another sensitive point concerns the relationship with the processing and distribution industries. A law passed in 2018 must ensure that increases in production costs are covered by the agri-food supply chain through trade negotiations. A protection that remains a dead letter. “I sell my milk to Savencia (an agri-food group), ed), but I don’t even know how much milk will cost on February 1, because we didn’t reach an agreement with them in December,” Yohann Barbe, a livestock farmer from northeastern France and member of the National Federation, told France24: Farmers’ unions (Fnsea) have a The other rule required 20% of food distributed in canteens to be organic by 2022, but that threshold remained around 6%, according to French newspaper Les Echos.
Criticisms of the Green Deal
European institutions also went to court, claiming that environmental standards were too high. That’s why a delegation of French farmers gathered in front of the EU Parliament in the European capital to make their voices heard. “We are here because the French government, in response to our demands, says the decisions come from us. Brussels“, one protester told reporters. The criticism comes despite the fact that the Union has allocated 53.7 billion euros to the rural world for the period 2023-2027, to be distributed among the territories of 27 member states. According to farmers, farmers are under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a system of subsidies and incentive programs. , will remain non-functional and this year many payments will be missing, creating problems with banks or suppliers.
More than 100 thousand farms were lost
Farmers also complain about the risk of losing ground to foreign competition, especially non-EU competition, which will no longer be burdened with the environmental restrictions required by the Green Deal, the environmental pact that calls for the use of fewer pesticides and fertilizers on soils decimated by chemicals. . While blockades and roadblocks continue, the government led by new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal assures that it has “heard the call” of farmers. At the end of the cabinet meeting, a spokesman added that the executive was “committed to preserving the French agricultural model so that farmers can earn a dignified living from their work.” According to a recent study, France lost 20% of its agricultural assets between 2010 and 2020, or approximately 101 thousand units. A situation that requires faster and more harmonious reforms.
The silence of Italian farmers
France is not the only country to see its roads invaded by tractors. Similar protests have been taking place in Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest in recent weeks. But farmers in some of Europe’s main agricultural countries are at a loss. Spain and Italy could join the movement, according to a French unionist. Bfmtv Christiane said, “Spain, which is about to demonstrate, and Italy, after the great flood and the insufficient support of the government, are also anemic and will demonstrate in their own countries to say ‘support us’ to the government.” Lambert is the Chairman of the Committee of Agricultural Professional Organizations of the European Union and former president of Fnsea. In fact, so far the main Italian agricultural organizations have remained silent; Coldiretti limited himself to expressing his condolences to Arnaud Rousseau, president of the French Agricultural Federation, who mourned the death of the mother and daughter of a farming family. Pirate car during a show.
Source: Today IT

Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.