Farmageddon spreads across Europe! Extremists block highways in France, Germany and Belgium with tractors, vow to completely cut off Paris amid bitter dispute over salaries

• Major European cities besieged by protesting farmers
• Protests erupt over rising costs and EU net-zero policy
• In Paris alone, 1,500 tractors surrounded difficult areas.

The major European cities of Paris, Germany and Belgium were besieged tonight by armed peasants from all over the continent.

A “paramilitary” blockade began on Monday, with armored vehicles and 5,000 additional police surrounding Paris, while in Hamburg, Germany, a response to farmers protesting against Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s decision to cut subsidies. The police were dispatched.

In Belgium, ministers were forced to evacuate the scene of a protest on a major highway in Wallonia.

As night fell, around 1,500 tractors were deployed at six major intersections into Paris, while farmers called for more protection against rising costs and an end to the EU’s green net zero policy. .

Protesting farmers began their operation by blocking the A13 motorway to the west of the capital, the A4 motorway to the east, and the A6, where hundreds of tractors drive south towards Paris.

By mid-afternoon, the goal of installing eight chokepoints on major roads leading to Paris appeared to have been achieved, according to traffic monitoring service Citadines.

Another target was Rungis International Market, known as the “belly of Paris”, where most of the capital’s restaurants, cafes and supermarkets are located.

“This is a fight for our lives,” said Jill Balland, who had traveled from her farm in the southwest of the country near the Spanish border.

“Farmers are killing themselves and we’re all struggling to stay in business. It’s the same everywhere,” Mr Balland said. “That’s why this siege will continue forever.”

Stéphane Sanchez, director of France’s FNSEA agricultural union, said the siege of Paris had been prepared with “paramilitary” precision.

There were similar sieges in other cities and towns, including Lyon, Limoges and Toulouse, causing massive traffic jams and food deliveries being halted.

In response, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesnow called for “zero tolerance of violence and degradation” by farmers.

They have already been involved in criminal activities across France, including setting fire to foreign trucks and their produce.

A supermarket was also attacked by a group of extremist farmers, who stole produce from overseas and set it on fire outside the store.

Mr Fesnow said criminal activity was unacceptable and the lockdown of Paris was largely futile.

“This is an act that ultimately punishes mainly Parisians,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re going to lock down the entire Ile-de-France.” [greater Paris] It will be in the interest of farmers. ”

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed that the security operation was designed “to prevent any blockade of Rungis and the airport.”

“We will not allow government buildings, tax offices or supermarkets to be damaged or trucks transporting foreign agricultural products to be stopped,” he said.

Darmanin also said the protests would not be allowed to affect Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, or the Rungis international food wholesale market in the south of the city.

Two people have already been killed in nationwide agricultural protests, and last Tuesday a woman and her teenage daughter were killed and her husband seriously injured when a car crashed into a barricade.

President Emmanuel Macron has ordered the country’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, to focus on quelling a potential “peasant revolt” (French for “jacry”).

He fears a return to the yellow vest-style uprisings that saw large-scale riots across the country protesting fuel tax hikes between 2018 and 2020.

Some farmers are already calling themselves gilets vers, which means green vests.

Farmer leaders said the government’s response so far has been inadequate.

Arnaud Lepoir, a member of FNSEA, an influential farmers’ union, said: “The prime minister gave us some snacks. I hope he will try a little harder this time and give us more.”

Sources told AFP that FNSEA leader Arnaud Rousseau and Young Farmers Union head Arnaud Gaylot were scheduled to meet with Attal later on Monday.

“Our aim is not to embarrass the French people or make life difficult, but to put pressure on the government,” Rousseau told broadcaster RTL.

Other groups also jumped on the bandwagon of protests. Earlier, about 30 activists from the environmental group Greenpeace set off smoke bombs at Place de la Concorde near the Champs-Elysées in Paris.

They also unfurled banners supporting the farmers before being taken away by police.

Taxi drivers staged their own protest on Monday over what they say is inadequate remuneration for transporting patients by French health services.

Their slow speeds added to the chaos on the highway.

Similar agricultural conflicts are occurring in other EU countries, including Germany, Italy and Spain, where tractors are being moved.

In Germany, tractors could be seen lined up in the center of Hamburg today. Government decisions to reduce subsidies and tax breaks for diesel and agricultural vehicles.

Although the government partially backtracked on its decision, saying it would maintain the car tax exemption and reduce the diesel tax cut in stages over three years, farmer unions remained unsatisfied.

German farmers’ associations say this is not enough and that the government needs to scrap the plan altogether if it wants to avoid demonstrations.

Protests in Germany include: In a bid to capitalize on the discontent, the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has launched a social media campaign depicting ordinary people being “ruined by irresponsible medieval political leaders.”

The party has called on Germans to go on a “general strike” to express dissatisfaction with Scholz’s government, and its supporters have begun sharing graphics and AI-generated images of farmer tractors descending on Berlin. There is.

“Come to Berlin and drive off the lights! Germany is turning blue,” one of the slogans shared on social media said, referring to the AfD’s colors.

In neighboring Belgium, farmers have stepped up their own movement, with protests erupting in Belgium’s Wallonia region, where 43% of rural land is used for agriculture.

Protesting farmers in Wallonia, like farmers across the continent, are furious at rising production costs and falling prices for their products.

They are concerned that Belgian agriculture will become unviable in the long term, and that young people will find the profession less attractive as a result.

Protests in the region became so violent that the local minister in charge of agriculture was forced to flee during a visit due to restless crowds.

Céline Tellier, Wallonia’s Minister of Environment, Nature, Animal Welfare and Rural Reconstruction, was seen running away from a protest at the Desseurs interchange between the E42 and E411 motorways.

“The people must understand that we are also acting in their interests,” said the Young Farmers’ Association, which represents Belgium’s next generation of agricultural workers and helped organize the protests. said. A society in which agriculture is at risk is a threat to everyone.

“Being dependent on other parts of the world for vital resources can have many repercussions, especially financially. We must all work together to prevent this from happening in agriculture. We have to fight.”

The outer ring road of the Brussels ring road was also blocked by tractors, and local authorities said it was impossible to enter the city’s ring road.

Farmer protests have also grown in Poland, Romania and the Netherlands in recent weeks.

British farming group Get Fair About Farming also said British farming was “on its knees”, sparking a wave of protests.