15,000 police officers and gendarmes have deployed across the country in anticipation of several days of standoff. The bulk of the troops are mobilized in the Paris region where, according to intelligence services, more than a thousand tractors are likely to converge to carry out a “siege” “ Relations between farmers and the police have been marked by a series of considerable tragedies,” recalls Jean-Marc Berlière, professor emeritus of contemporary history and specialist in the history of the police in France.