Following actions targeting French ports and highways on Monday, angry farmers are planning a new demonstration in Paris on Tuesday morning with several hundred tractors. The FNSEA Grand Bassin Parisien, an entity encompassing Ile-de-France and neighboring departments, is organizing the protest to demand “concrete and immediate actions” to defend food sovereignty, which they claim is “in danger.”
Farmers Mobilize in Paris
Protesters are expected to gather at Place de la Concorde “around 6-7 AM.” Benoît Raux, secretary general of the FDSEA du Nord, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that “about 250 tractors” are expected to arrive from Hauts-de-France. The police prefecture announced that the protest route, declared by the FNSEA, has been “validated,” and organizers have “committed to comply with the safety instructions given to them.” The prefecture mentioned a gathering planned near the National Assembly.
These actions persist as the signing of the agreement between the European Union (EU) and four Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) approaches, scheduled for Saturday in Paraguay. Farmers in France are strongly opposed to this agreement.
Port Blockades and Product Controls
In Le Havre, France’s primary container port, farmers set up roadblocks with burning tires, tree trunks, and some tractors, without completely blocking activity. Since the weekend, farmers have been “controlling” refrigerated trucks and verifying the origin of products.
Justin Lemaître, secretary general of Jeunes Agriculteurs in Seine-Maritime, lamented to AFP that these actions revealed “foreign flour, soups with Thai vegetables, products that do not have the same production standards” as French products. He demanded “that imports respect our production standards.” The mobilization at the entrance to the port of Le Havre “will be lifted at midnight from Monday to Tuesday,” “before organizing a collective bus departure to Strasbourg on January 20” in front of the Parliament’s headquarters, according to the spokesperson.
Opposition to the EU-Mercosur Agreement
Supporters of the Mercosur agreement, the result of more than twenty-five years of negotiations, consider it essential to stimulate exports, support the continent’s economy, and strengthen diplomatic ties in a context of global uncertainty. However, for its detractors, this treaty will disrupt European agriculture with cheaper imported products from Latin America that may not comply with EU standards due to insufficient controls.
On Monday morning at the port of Bayonne, about a hundred farmers from the Confédération paysanne, the Mouvement de défense des exploitants familiaux (Modef), and the Basque union ELB blocked a cereal export site of the Maïsica company, seen as a “strong symbol” of the free trade agreements they denounce. In La Rochelle, about sixty protesters set up a barrier of straw bales in front of oil installations at the industrial port, at the call of the Coordination rurale (CR).
Widespread Mobilization Across France
In total, “55 actions” organized in “31 departments” mobilized “2,400 people and 1,000 machines,” according to the Ministry of the Interior. These took place notably in front of prefectures and on roads in Metz, Pau, Périgueux, Poitiers, Dax, and Limoges, at the call of several unions.
This new agricultural mobilization, which began in December in Doubs and then in Ariège in opposition to the government’s management of bovine dermatosis, intensified last week with tractors entering Paris. “I don’t feel that we have made much progress since Paris,” said Thomas Hégarty, president of the CR in Haute-Vienne, where the union dumped waste in front of the prefecture in Limoges, with bitterness.
Government Response and Farmers’ Distress
Several roads, bridges, and industrial zones were blocked or disrupted by tractors in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes, Loire-Atlantique, Morbihan, and Moselle, and on the A31, near the border with Luxembourg. While a blockade of the A63 near Bayonne was lifted overnight after negotiations with the prefect, blockades remained in effect on Monday on the A64, south of Toulouse, and especially on the A1, with a filtering blockade set up by the CR in the Lille-Paris direction. “It makes you wonder if the state still wants its farmers,” lamented Franck Hembert, a market gardener in Pas-de-Calais. “Whether there is Mercosur or not, farmers are already in immense distress.”
“The anger of farmers is deep, and their demands are legitimate, and we hear them at the highest level of government,” responded Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard on BFM-TV on Monday morning, after announcing measures on Friday in favor of cereal growers, winegrowers, and breeders, without calming the mobilization. A large part of this 300-million-euro package, spread over 2026 and 2027, however, depends on the adoption of the 2026 budget.
International Protests and Future Actions
Abroad, demonstrations have taken place in Italy, Poland, and Ireland to protest against the Mercosur agreement, which would create one of the world’s largest free trade areas, with more than 700 million consumers. The ratification of the treaty still depends on a vote that promises to be close in the European Parliament, not before February. A large gathering of farmers is planned in front of its Strasbourg headquarters on January 20.
Source: Le Monde with AFP
