PARIS: French farmers were on Tuesday maintaining roadblocks on key highways into Paris for a second day, increasing pressure on the government for more concessions in an intensifying standoff.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is expected to address parliament and announce new measures aimed at assuaging the anger of farmers over their working conditions, as he faces his biggest crisis since being named by President Emmanuel Macron this month.
There were also expectations that Macron himself would address the issue at a news conference during a state visit to Sweden on Tuesday.
The farmers have now staged over a week of protests, which have spread to the capital where tractors, hay bales and other objects have prevented motorists from entering Paris along several key routes.
There were 40 kilometres of traffic jams around the capital in late morning on Tuesday, according to monitoring site Sytadin.
The government has so far promoted a softly-softly approach with the protesters, while making clear that any attempts to block Paris's main airports or the vast Rungis wholesale food market to the south of the city would be a red line.
A police source said that around 1,000 farmers and 500 vehicles had been involved in Monday's actions and they appeared intent on keeping up the protest until Friday.
A convoy of producers who left on Tuesday morning from the southwestern town of Limoges heading for Rungis briefly changed route after being blocked by gendarmes, organisers said.
Armoured vehicles of the gendarmerie have been deployed around Rungis to ensure food supplies are not disrupted.
Arnaud Rousseau, the leader of the biggest farmers' union FNSEA, said he was against any disruption of food distribution.
"Our objective is not to starve French people, but to feed them," he told the Europe 1 broadcaster.
"We have told rival unions since the start that heading to Rungis in a show of force is not a good idea," he said.
Farmers were however seeking to block roads heading to the airport of the southwestern city of Toulouse, which is surrounded by agricultural regions.
Meanwhile, farmers spent the night in tractors on key routes heading to the capital.
"The night was short, we'll have to bounce back but we're up for it", said Samuel Vandaele of the FDSEA farmers' union for the Paris region, under a motorway bridge some 30 kilometres outside of Paris.
French farmers are angry about incomes, red tape and environmental policies they say undermine their ability to compete with other countries and have left France increasingly dependent on imports. — AFP
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