Protesters are demanding higher pay and fewer environmental laws, which they are saying are impacting their livelihoods.
French farmers have blocked main motorways round France with tractors in a standoff with the federal government over considerations about inflation and competitors from low-cost imports.
On Monday, farmers stated they aimed to determine eight chokepoints on important roads into Paris.
“We want solutions,” stated Karine Duc, a farmer in southwestern Lot-et-Garonne, as she joined a convoy of tractors heading for Paris.
“That is the ultimate battle for farming. It’s a query of survival,” she advised the Agence France-Presse information company.
The federal government, which has been cautious to keep away from an escalation, has progressively dropped plans to scale back subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental laws.
Paris has additionally stated it might push its European Union friends to conform to ease laws on fallow farmland.
Farmers should meet sure circumstances to obtain EU subsidies, together with a requirement to dedicate 4 p.c of farmland to “non-productive” areas the place nature can recuperate.
However farmers organisations say the plans must go additional.
“At this stage, what we wish … is to extend the stress,” Arnaud Rousseau, head of the influential farmers union FNSEA, stated on RTL radio.
“So we’ll block all the principle highways that go to and from Paris, as much as 30km [18 miles] from Paris. … Our goal is to place stress on the federal government, in order that we will rapidly discover a answer for a approach out of the disaster.”
In current weeks, mass protests by farmers have occurred throughout Europe as their anger grows about falling incomes, crimson tape and environmental insurance policies they stated undermine their capacity to compete.
In response to the protests in France, the federal government deployed 15,000 police and gendarmes.
Inside Minister Gerald Darmanin advised safety forces to indicate restraint however warned the farmers to not intrude with strategic areas.
“We’re not going to permit authorities buildings or tax places of work or supermarkets to be broken or lorries transporting overseas produce to be stopped. Clearly, that’s unacceptable,” he stated.
He stated the protests wouldn’t be allowed to have an effect on Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports or the Rungis worldwide wholesale meals market.
Armoured police autos had been deployed to Rungis on Monday after some protesters had threatened to “occupy” it.
President Emmanuel Macron known as a gathering with a number of ministers on Monday afternoon to debate the protests, his workplace stated.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal tried to handle the farmers’ considerations however didn’t defuse the scenario.
“I need us to make clear issues and see what further measures we will take,” he stated.
Rousseau stated he anticipated to fulfill Attal on Monday.
“Our aim is to not annoy French individuals or make their lives troublesome however to place stress on the federal government,” he advised the RTL broadcaster.
