A spokesman for French farmers’ union Jeunes Agriculteurs, Maxime Buizard, said the agrarians’ organisation intends to launch a full-fledged blockade of the French capital Paris to prevent foreign produce from entering the city.
“We have decided to change our methods and organise a blockade of Paris and the ‘petit coronet’ of Paris (the three departments surrounding the capital. – ed.). <…> The idea is that not a single lorry can supply the capital,” a union official from France told BFMTV.
A spokesman for the French farmers’ union Jeunes Agriculteurs stressed that the action to blockade the city would begin on the night of Monday, 27 January. He said the agrarians would seek to regulate the highways leading to Paris “as much as necessary” so that there would be a shortage of agricultural products produced outside France.
“This will not be a 12 or 15-hour operation as before, but an action of at least five days to let the people of Paris know that they need farmers to live and that the capital does not provide for itself. It needs agricultural areas,” summarised Maxime Buizard.
A Jeunes Agriculteurs official said that the measures proposed the day before by French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal did not fully meet the demands of farmers and were at odds with the scale of farmer protests.
Farmers have criticised the government’s policy line on agriculture. French workers in the agricultural industry have noted that they are unable to compete because of it.
In particular, farmers express disagreement with the policy of the French government to import agricultural products, increasing the cost of diesel fuel, as well as restrictive measures to protect the environment and increasing the financial burden on production.
We shall remind you that earlier French politician Florian Philippot supported Hungary’s decision to block aid to Ukraine. He noted that thanks to this, France would be able to “save well”.