The “Paris siege”, as the agricultural unions call it, was activated, punctually, at 2:00 p.m. this Monday.
Nobody knows how long it will last or how far it will go.
On the A13, one of the eight access roads to the French capital blocked since the same time, fifty tractors, at a slow but determined pace, have begun to occupy the road, while some police officers observed from afar and the Cars turned off at the first exit towards Mantes-la-Jolie, the neighboring town.
The FNSEA, France's first agricultural union, plans to maintain the protest until President Emmanuel Macron addresses their demands, which range from a easing of environmental standards to measures against what they consider "unfair competition" from countries such as Spain, Italy or Ukraine.
They also complain about excessive bureaucracy and falling income, and the obligation to leave 4% of their land fallow.
The Ministry of the Interior has deployed 15,000 police and gendarmes throughout the country and protects, with armored police vehicles, the town of Rungis, the main European wholesale market, and the Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports.
The objective of the deployment of security forces is to avoid cuts in these nerve centers for economic life and prevent tractors from installing themselves on the capital's peripheral boulevard - the ring road - or even entering the city.
The FNSEA and the other union convening the “site”, Young Farmers, have declared that they have no intention, for now, of either closing access to Rungis or entering Paris.
“We will stay here until decisions are made at the top,” Adrien Lemarié promises, after parking the tractor on the A13.
“As long as it takes,” emphasizes this son of a family of grain farmers, like most in this area on the banks of the Seine about 40 kilometers west of Paris.
He has planned to sleep in the vehicle, and on Tuesday his father and his sister will take over.
Lemarié says that, while he was driving his vehicle towards the highway to block it, some cars he passed honked their horns as a sign of support.
The countryside movement, which began two weeks ago in the south of France and has since spread throughout the territory, enjoys broad popular support.
The symbolism of the siege of Paris is considerable.
This is no longer a provincial or rural protest, but rather one that approaches the center of political and media power, and makes it more visible.
And intimidating.
A farmer pitches a tent on his tractor trailer on a motorway, north of Paris.
Christophe Ena (AP)
A banner that reads "Proud to Feed You!"
near a road block made by farmers on the A4 motorway near Jossigny, east of Paris.BERTRAND GUAY (AFP)
A caravan of tractors passing through Noailles (France), this Monday.STEPHANIE LECOCQ (REUTERS)
A driver makes the victory sign from his van as dozens of tractors arrive at the blocking point on the D1001 national road near Bornel, north of Paris.MOHAMMED BADRA (EFE)
A farmer takes a selfie on the roof of his tractor during a blockade of the A6 motorway near Villabe, south of Paris.EMMANUEL DUNAND (AFP)
Empty A4 motorway shortly before being blocked by French farmers near Jossigny, east of Paris.BERTRAND GUAY (AFP)
Farmers drive their tractors on a highway towards Paris, near Chamant, north of the capital.Matthieu Mirville (AP)
French farmers walk along the A16 motorway as they try to reach Paris during a protest over prices, taxes and green regulation, grievances shared by farmers across Europe, in Beauvais, France, on Monday.
STEPHANIE LECOCQ (REUTERS)
A French farmer places a French flag on his tractor as a convoy prepares to leave Boe, near Agen, south-west France, following calls from the CR47 (Rural Coordination 47) union to block Rungis market, the market largest wholesaler in the world, near Paris.CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT (AFP)
A tractor participates in a protest on the border of Belgium and France, between Aubange and Mont-Saint-Martin, with a sign that reads: "As a child you dream about this, as an adult you die because of it." JULIEN WARNAND (AFP)
French farmers march with their tractors along the road.
One of them (below) carries a sign that says "Savings and transmission, the farmer's code of honor." CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT (AFP)
French farmers protest nationwide called by several agricultural unions in defense of better wages and lower taxes. CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT (AFP)
French police officers guard the entrance to the Rungis market, this Monday. JULIEN DE ROSA (AFP)
French farmers prepare their tractors to leave in convoy towards Paris.CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT (AFP)
An effigy of a farmer in overalls hangs from a road overpass at the Nimes-Ouest exit of the A9 motorway, near Nimes, southern France.SYLVAIN THOMAS (AFP)
The blockade on the A13 – known as the Normandy Motorway – consists of tractors, some with a French flag, parked in a row on the road, in both directions.
Impossible to circulate without permission from the organizers, who have installed a trailer with food and tables for journalists under a tarp.
A banner reads: “France, do you still love your peasants?”
In another: “There is no country without a peasant.”
And another, attached to tow with a tractor, says: “Macron!
Let's not import food we don't want."
The owner of this last tractor is called Thomas Brebion and explains that the problem is that France imposes regulations, in addition to the European ones, that complicate life for farmers.
He cites the ban on insecticides for beets which, he claims, has caused a drop in production and the closure of sugar producers.
“Now sugar is bought in Ukraine,” he says.
“We,” she says, “work for the environment.
My grandfather was a farmer, and my father.
But there are ecological regulations that do not always make sense.”
Protests in Belgium
The blocking of access to Paris and other cities and highways in France coincides with protests in Belgium that threaten to converge in Brussels, where this Monday several tractors arrived almost to the doors of the European Parliament,
reports Silvia Ayuso
.
The protesters demand an improvement in income from production.
And they denounce the ecological policies of the EU Green Deal, as well as international trade agreements such as the one that is still pending with the Latin American countries of Mercosur.
It is a common claim with French farmers, and Macron supports it.
“France is clearly opposed to the form of the Mercosur treaty,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said Friday during a visit to a farm.
“The President of the Republic has always opposed it and we continue and will continue to oppose it.”
In Paris the blockade is not noticeable and there are ways for motorists to avoid it, but if it were to extend, things could change.
All eyes are focused on the young Attal who, recently appointed to the position, faces a potentially explosive crisis.
Road closure near Namur (Belgium), this Monday.
OLIVIER HOSLET (EFE)
On Friday, at the farm, Attal said that the Government will eliminate the increase in the rate for tractor fuel, one of the main demands of the sector.
For Arnaud Lepoil, president of the union in Mantes-la-Jolie and at the head of the mobilization on the A13, the measures on fuel “are an appetizer.”
“We would like him to do more.”
On Tuesday, the prime minister will deliver his first general policy speech to the National Assembly, and he could take the opportunity to announce new concessions.
On the Normandy Highway, a farmer was installing a television under the awning on Monday afternoon: “We'll follow it from here.”
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