Paris France – French farmers blocked key highways around Paris for the second consecutive day on Tuesday and threatened to block the important Rungis wholesale market, pending the announcement of the “new measures” promised by the Government on January 30.
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The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, must deliver his general policy declaration on the afternoon of January 30, during which new announcements are expected to try to calm the anger of the farmers of the third European agricultural power and sixth in the world.
“We are going to see the speech (…), but there is little chance that anything will come out,” Yohan François, of the FDSEA union, told AFP, expressing his joy at seeing the farmers' determination to resist in the long term.
Aboard tractors, farmers began a “silence of the capital for an unlimited duration” on Monday afternoon, at the call of the first agricultural center, the FNSEA, and its allies from Young Farmers (JA), after 11 days of protests.
“It's been a short night, we're going to have to recover, but we're prepared,” says Samuel Vandaele, a farmer hoarsely under a bridge on the A4 motorway, about 30 kilometers east of Paris.
The farmers who spent the night there were prepared in the morning to wait for the hundred of their colleagues who will arrive from the northwest of France, thanks to a tent, braziers, generators, beer taps and coffee thermoses.
Massive mobilization and anger that does not stop
By early morning, more than 100 kilometers of traffic jams were recorded in the Paris region, according to the Sytadin site.
From the south of the country, a convoy of 200 tractors is also advancing that left Agen the day before heading to the Rungis wholesale market, one of the largest in the world, with the aim of blocking it at the call of the Rural Coordination union.
The authorities deployed a large number of security forces to prevent this action, which does not have the unanimity of the agrarian movement.
“Our goal is not to starve the French,” warned FNSEA leader Arnaud Rousseau.
The sector demands measures to solve the drop in income, low pensions, administrative complexity, inflation of environmental standards and foreign competition, especially the agreement negotiated by the EU and the Mercosur countries.
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