Fuming French farmers pile pressure on Paris

AGEN, France — French farmers have blocked highways and dumped crates of imported produce, demanding urgent action on low farm-gate prices, green regulation and free trade policies as swelling protests moved to Paris.

Farmers said on Thursday that the protests, now in their second week after breaking out in the southwest, would continue as long as their demands are not met, posing the first big challenge for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

France's top farmers' union on Friday announced plans to blockade major roads around Paris, upping the pressure on the government.

Five toll stations on major road arteries into Paris would be blocked from 2 pm, the union said.

French intelligence services earlier warned the government that regional farming unions have called on their members to converge on the capital, Le Parisien newspaper and BFM TV said.

As Attal convened senior ministers with the aim of announcing concrete proposals on Jan 19, farmers used bales of hay and tractors to block major highways across France, the European Union's biggest agricultural producer.

"We always have more rules to follow, we are always asked for more and we earn less and less. We cannot live from our work anymore," 61-year-old farmer Jean-Jacques Pesquerel from the Calvados Coordination Rurale union said.

Crates of tomatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers that one group of farmers said had been imported were strewed across the A7 highway that links Marseille and Lyon, France's second- and third-biggest cities. On the southwestern edge of Paris, dozens of tractors led a go-slow during the morning rush hour.

Asked when the protesters would lift roadblocks, Gaillot said: "It is he (Attal) who holds the key."

Late on Wednesday, the powerful FNSEA farming union handed the government a list of their demands, including better enforcement of a law designed to safeguard farm-gate prices.

The union also called for continued diesel tax breaks for agricultural vehicles, the immediate payment of EU agricultural subsidies, guarantees on insurance payouts related to health and climate, and immediate aid for winemakers and organic farmers.

French retailers are locked in annual price negotiations with suppliers, which the government wants concluded by the end of the month. Farmers said they will be on the sharp end of efforts to haul prices lower.

Fearing a spillover from farmer unrest in Germany, Poland and Romania, the French government has already postponed a draft farming law meant to help more people become farmers, saying it will beef up the measures and ease some regulations.

Ahead of European Parliament elections in June, President Emmanuel Macron is wary that farmers are a growing constituency for the far right.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused the government of complacency and backing European regulations that hurt farmers, such as rules on mandatory fallow land.

"Emmanuel Macron addresses farmers with a hand on the shoulder and then knifes them in the back in Brussels," Le Pen told reporters. "The farmers' worst enemies can be found in this government."

Agencies and Mohammad Arif Ullah in Paris contributed to this story.