PARIS: France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal sought to head off fresh farmers' protests on Wednesday, as they resumed direct action including dumping produce and blocking roads in pursuit of their demands.
Attal promised to elevate agriculture "to the status of a fundamental national interest", outlining an agriculture bill designed to address farmers' grievances.
Farmers staged crippling nationwide protests last month before their unions called for them to be suspended after the government promised reforms.
But this weekend's national agriculture show - a major annual event for both the French public and its politicians - has become a de facto deadline for the government to meet farmers' demands.
Even as Attal was speaking on Wednesday, farmers were blockading a stretch of around 70 kilometres on a motorway in the south of the country.
On Tuesday, farmers had blocked a milk transport in protest against wholesale prices they say are too low, and set fire to tyres at roundabouts.
In some of the angriest protests in Europe, French farmers were out in force for more than a week in January, using tractors to block key roads into Paris and other major highways nationwide.
Their grievances include burdensome environmental rules, the threat of cheap imports from outside the EU, and measures to address the low income many of them still suffer.
In France on Wednesday, Attal said a forthcoming law would lay out measures "in black and white".
He said it was aimed at achieving "farming and food sovereignty" for France, and incorporating the dozens of promises already made to protesting farmers since the start of the crisis.
It would also create a new basis for negotiations between producers and wholesalers to improve the income of farmers, a key issue for the sector.
Already, payments under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been made much faster than at this time last year, he said.
Several million euros have been paid out in emergency aid, notably to livestock farmers, he added.
France will also stop using its current national indicator for pesticide reduction — which farmers' unions want to get rid of — and would switch to an EU indicator instead, he said.
"That is what farmers wanted," he said, though the measure has drawn protests from environmental groups.
The head of the Young Farmers (JA) union, Arnaud Gaillot, said after Attal's conference that "some things are beginning to move", but added that "what we need is actions". — AFP
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