French and Polish farmers led a new surge of agricultural anger in Europe on Friday, taking tractors into major cities and blocking roads to demand lighter regulation and taxation.
Farmers across the continent have been protesting for weeks over what they say are excessively restrictive environmental rules, competition from cheap imports from outside the European Union and low incomes.
Tractors rolled into Paris as farmers sought to pile pressure on French President Emmanuel Macron on the eve of a flagship annual agricultural show which has turned into a major political event.
Promises of reforms by the government in response to January’s protests have failed to placate the farmers, who were due to discuss their grievances with Macron at the Salon de l’Agriculture on Saturday before the president cancelled the planned debate.
“We’re really not being listened to, because we’re really being taken for pawns,” Nicolas Bongay, president of a farmers’ union in the rural Doubs department, told AFP.
“It’s very, very hard for everyone. We came here not to go away… we’re staying.”
Macron’s name was whistled and booed at a meeting of farmers belonging to France’s main agricultural union on Friday evening, an AFP journalist said. French farmers have continued to block roads, set fire to tyres and lay siege to supermarkets, saying they need more measures. Farmers in Spain have also held mass protests this week.