Fuming French Farmers Pile Pressure On Paris

France's government on Thursday sought to find answers to farmers blocking motorways and demonstrating at public buildings across the country, after a fuel tax rise ignited long-standing resentments

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jan, 2024) France's government on Thursday sought to find answers to farmers blocking motorways and demonstrating at public buildings across the country, after a fuel tax rise ignited long-standing resentments.

It's the first crisis faced by recently installed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who summoned his economy, environment and agriculture ministers to decide on aid measures and fend off a possible blockade of the capital, months before European Parliament elections.

Attal would make "concrete proposals for simplification measures" to aid farmers on Friday, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau's office said after the talks.

The ministers had discussed "farming issues, especially off-road diesel, animal husbandry and pay," the ministry added.

Farmers were out in force on a number of motorways, ring roads and roundabouts on Thursday, two days after a farmer and her daughter died at a roadblock.

Hundreds of tractors drove through Rennes and Nantes in the west of the country, blasting horns, brandishing mock gallows and setting off smoke bombs.

"We're totally fed up because we can no longer make a living from our profession," said Nathalie Posseme, a local Confederation Rurale union official.

"If people want quality food, they're going to have to pay for it," she added.

Elsewhere in France, hundreds of farmers blocked the M35 motorway near Strasbourg in the east while dozens of tractors rolled along the A1 motorway near Lille, close to the Belgian border.

Some routes were blocked around Avignon and Marseille in the south, according to traffic information website Bison Fute.

And in the southwest, there was a tractor go-slow around the Bordeaux ring road.