French Farmers Lay ‘Siege’ to Paris in Growing Standoff
The authorities warned residents to brace for disruptions as farmers converged on the capital to press a wide range of grievances.
French Farmers Lay ‘Siege’ to Paris in Growing Standoff
The authorities warned residents to brace for disruptions as farmers converged on the capital to press a wide range of grievances.
By Aurelien Breeden and Catherine Porter
Aurelien Breeden reported from Paris and Catherine Porter from Agen, France.
Jan. 29, 2024Updated 4:31 p.m. ET
Sign up for Your Places: Global Update. All the latest news for any part of the world you select. Get it sent to your inbox.
Irate farmers deployed tractors to block the main roads in and out of Paris on Monday, in an intensifying standoff that has left the capital girding for disruptions and has become the first major test for France’s newly appointed prime minister, Gabriel Attal.
Last week Mr. Attal rushed to farming regions in the south of France and offered a series of rapid concessions as he tried to head off widening demonstrations on roadways from farmers nationwide. But the steps failed to appease many of them.
Many farmers complain that imports are undercutting their livelihood, that wages are too low, and that regulation from both the government and the European Union has become suffocating.
But their concrete demands are so varied that the protests present an increasingly precarious moment for the government, one that defies easy solutions.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I am determined to move forward,” Mr. Attal said on Sunday after visiting farmers in the Indre-et-Loire area of central France. But he also warned that “there are things that cannot change overnight.”
Hundreds of farmers have now converged on the French capital for what they termed a “siege” of undetermined length, a major escalation after a week of protests and roadblocks that have gripped the country.
Mr. Attal, who met with the main farmer unions on Monday evening, is expected to make new announcements on Tuesday in a policy speech.
More on France
Immigration Law: France’s Constitutional Council struck down large chunks of a tough new immigration law, issuing a widely expected ruling that many provisions added by President Emmanuel Macron’s government under right-wing pressure were unlawful.
LVMH: Bernard Arnault, the head of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton luxury goods empire, announced that he had nominated two more of his children to sit on the company board, a move to cement his family’s control of Europe’s most valuable conglomerate.
A New Memorial: A monument in Paris devoted to the victims of slavery was intended as a gesture of reconciliation in a country that has been loath to address the unsavory parts of its past. It has become a source of division instead.
Farmers Rise Up: A car plowed into a barrier set up by protesting French farmers early killing a woman and her daughter and injuring her husband, as France faced growing rural fury at perceived overregulation and increased diesel fuel prices.
But it was unclear whether he would convince farmers to pack up the makeshift camps that they had just set up at highway ramps, gas stations and rest areas around the capital, with rolling shifts to last at least several days.