Fleet of tractors have edged closer to Paris, Lyon and other strategic locations in France on Wednesday as thousands of protesting farmers appeared to disregard warnings of police intervention if they walked over the red lines laid down by the government.
Farmers’ unions, uninterested by the compromises offered by President Emmanuel Macron’s administration had urged their members to fight on for better pay, reduced red tape and security from foreign competition.
“I’m so proud of you,”
Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, the head of the farmers’ association in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department had expressed pride towards his fellow compatriots, while they were headed for the wholesale Rungis market south of Paris, a major food distribution platform for the capital.
“You are fighting this battle because if we don’t fight we die,” he was reported to have said.
The government has meanwhile, warned the demonstrating farmers to avoid from Rungis and large cities, with the Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announcing that police officials were ready to defend strategic spots.
“They [the farmers] can’t attack police, they can’t enter Rungis, they can’t enter the Paris airports or the centre of Paris,” Darmanin had told the France 2 broadcaster.
However, despite the warning, a convoy of tractors that began moving in the French southwest resumed its drive towards Rungis on Wednesday morning after passing the night on farms along the way, according to AFP reporters.
In anticipation of the farmers’ arrival, Police units with reinforced (armoured) vehicles have been dispatched along the A6 motorway leading to the food market.
Minister Darmanin had revealed on Wednesday that there were 10,000 protesting farmers on French roads, blocking 100 spots along key roads.
In addition to storming Paris, the convoys were also trying to surround Lyon, France’s third-biggest city.
The farmers’ grievances range from rising costs to meeting carbon-cutting targets, fuel prices, inflation, bureaucracy, and Ukrainian grain imports.
After over a week of intensifying French protests, aggrieved farmers in other European countries have joined the movement.
Dozens of Italian farmers staged a protest with tractors close to Milan on Tuesday, the latest in a series of small protests across the country.
Spanish farmer unions have said they would join the movement with a number of protests, while Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis volunteered to speed up financial aid to farmers to ward off protests overwhelming other countries.
Germany, the Netherlands, Polands, Belgium and Romania were not left out as protests have broken out in each of the countries in recent days.
