Farmers caused chaos on the roads by blocking motorways in their fight to get higher prices for their produce
Farmers in France demanding higher prices for their produce caused chaos on the roads by blocking motorways on Thursday despite the announcement of a €600 million (£423 million) aid package.
Holidaymakers faced huge traffic jams. Livestock farmers who say they risk bankruptcy because supermarkets are driving down meat and dairy prices closed roads with tractors and piles of tyres.
After blocking access to tourist sites including Mont-Saint-Michel for several days, they briefly removed the barricades after the government announced the aid package on Wednesday.
However, by the afternoon many barricades were back and a number of motorways were blocked across the country.
About 80 farmers accompanied by three pigs briefly occupied a supermarket in south-western France on Wednesday. Shoppers were startled but amused. Up to 15,000 farmers joined the protests across France on Thursday, according to union leader Xavier Beulin.
The pigs take a rest in the supermarket (Photoshot)
Farmers urged the government to take measures to increase the prices they are paid rather than granting state aid, which they say will only be a temporary solution that will leave them struggling after it comes to an end.
“We must be able to express our anger,” said a farmers’ union leader, Xavier Beulin.
The unions promised to lift many of the barricades by the end of the day. But as they were being removed in midafternoon around France’s second city Lyon, hundreds of tractors converged on the city centre.
Firefighters work to extiguish bales of straw set alite by farmers demonstrating at a blockade in Lyon (AFP)
Another union leader, Jean-Pierre Fleury, who held talks with François Hollande, the French president, on Wednesday, said: “The conditions for lifting the roadblocks are not yet met.”
However, it is unclear if the government can regulate market prices. Retail chains have so far rejected Mr Hollande’s pleas for them to increase prices voluntarily.
Farmers say they cannot compete with cheaper imported produce and the government has urged the public to be patriotic and “eat and drink French”.
About 10 per cent of the country’s livestock farms face the threat of imminent closure, with up to 25,000 meat and dairy producers on the brink of bankruptcy.
The public have generally been sympathetic. However, tempers were severely tested as exasperated families heading to holiday resorts were forced to spend long hours sitting in their cars in temperatures of well over 86F (30C) in much of southern France.
Source: Telegraph
