Protests by farmers angered by complex regulations, administrative hassles and low wages spread across France on Friday, blocking several highways, snarling traffic for miles and forcing the country’s new prime minister to tear up his schedule and head to a remote farm in the region where the demonstrations began.
Gabriel Attal, the 34-year-old prime minister who took office this month, arrived late in the afternoon in southwestern France to try to ease the tension.
“Without our farmers, we are no longer France,” he declared at a cattle farm in Montastruc-de-Salies, in the Haute-Garonne region. He appeared intent on convincing his rural audience that its angry message had been received, even as some tractor convoys inched closer to Paris.
Mr. Attal said that the government would scrap plans to reduce state subsidies on the diesel fuel used in trucks and other farming machinery, and he promised that it would significantly cut back the time-consuming bureaucratic regulations farmers must follow. For example, 14 different regulations on hedges would be merged into one. » | Roger Cohen and Aurelien Breeden, Reporting from Paris | Friday, January 26, 2024
En direct, colère des agriculteurs : Marc Fesneau promet des « mesures complémentaires » dès mardi : Le ministre de l’agriculture a promis dimanche une « tolérance zéro » en cas de « violences et de dégradations » alors que certains agriculteurs veulent mettre en place lundi « un siège de la capitale pour une durée indéterminée ». LIVE EN COURS »
