French farmers gathered in droves outside Paris on Monday in a staged protest against their government’s environmental regulations.
Nearly two months after French farmers dumped 300 cubic meters of manure in front of state buildings in Cahors, hundreds of tractors and mounds of hay are blocking the highways leading into Paris, according to ABC. French farmers argue they are overregulated and forced to compete with lower-priced food imports from countries without the same burdensome regulations, says the outlet.
The farmers are causing a “crisis” for Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who has been in charge for less than a month, says ABC. “We’ve come to defend French agriculture,” Christophe Rossignol, a 52-year-old farmer and protester, said. “We go from crisis to crisis.”
Start of the siege of Paris by farmers has begun.
The 8 highways leading to the capital are blocked by hundreds of tractors for an indefinite period.
Farmers from several departments will come to reinforce the dams in the coming days.
🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/hxgnyQdkJt
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 30, 2024
France is the EU’s biggest agriculture producer, according to Reuters. The protesting farmers say they are not being paid enough and that their businesses are bogged down by regulations on environmental protection. Protestors are upset over the fact that the EU has chosen to import food from Ukraine and South American countries, where environmental standards are not upheld. Farmers are also faced with the incoming requirement to leave 4% of all farmland fallow, the outlet reported. (RELATED: French President Emmanuel Macron Sparks Controversy For Suggesting The Unvaccinated Are ‘No Longer Citizens’)
How can you not love these French farmers?
They are literally throwing manure at government buildings to protest high taxes in the farming sector.
This is in front of the DDTM buildings in Quimper to express their general contempt for government trying to squeeze them out of… pic.twitter.com/MJA5VsqjGF
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) December 6, 2023
“It’s just too much, we’re really fed up,” 46-year-old farmer Geraldine Grillon told Reuters, blaming President Emmanuel Macron and the European Union.