AGEN, France, Jan 25 (Reuters): Farmers blocked highways across France and dumped crates of foreign-grown vegetables on Thursday as they pressed the government to protect them from cheap imports, rising costs and red tape.
Farmers said the protests, now in their second week after breaking out in the southwest, would continue as long as their demands are not met, posing the first big challenge for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
As Attal convened senior ministers with the aim of announcing concrete proposals on Friday, farmers used bales of hay and tractors to block major highways across France, the European Union's biggest agricultural producer.
Crates of tomatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers that one group of farmers said had been imported from neighbouring countries were strewn across the A7 highway that links Marseille and Lyon, France's second and third biggest cities.
Some farming unions have threatened to blockade Paris. On Thursday, dozens of tractors led a go-slow during rush-hour on the southwestern edge of the capital.
The powerful FNSEA farming union late on Wednesday handed the government a list of 100 demands, including better enforcement of a law designed to safeguard farmgate prices.
The union also called for continued diesel tax-breaks for agricultural vehicles, the immediate payment of EU agricultural subsidies, guarantees on insurance payouts related to health and climate, and immediate aid for winemakers and organic farmers.
Farmer discontent over price levels is particularly acute in the dairy sector, where producers say the government's anti-inflation push has undermined the legislation designed to underpin prices.
French retailers are locked in annual price negotiations with suppliers, which the government wants concluded by the end of the month. Farmers say they will be on the sharp end of efforts to haul prices lower. Fearing a spillover from farmer unrest in Germany, Poland and Romania, the French government has already postponed a draft farming law meant to help more people become farmers, saying it will beef up the measures and ease some regulations.
Ahead of European Parliament elections in June, President Emmanuel Macron is wary that farmers are a growing constituency for the far right.
Far right leader Marine Le Pen accused the government of complacency and backing European regulations that hurt farmers, such as rules on mandatory fallow land.
"Emmanuel Macron addresses farmers with a hand on the shoulder and then knifes them in the back in Brussels," Le Pen told reporters.
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