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PROTESTS

French farmers lift roadblocks as Europe protests persist

French authorities said Friday the worst of a crisis that saw farmers block roads for days was over, as protesters began lifting barricades, but demonstrations persisted elsewhere in Europe including Spain, Italy and Greece.

Published: 3 February 2024 16:07 CET
French farmers lift roadblocks as Europe protests persist
Protesters stand at a blockade of the A43 highway toll in Saint-Quentin Fallavier, near Lyon. Photo: JEFF PACHOUD/AFP.

In some of the fiercest among the EU-wide protests, French farmers had been out in force for more than a week, using tractors to block key roads into Paris and other major highways nationwide.

Farmers’ numerous complaints range from burdensome environmental rules to cheap imports of produce from countries outside the EU, including Ukraine. But their focus was on the challenge of making ends meet in the sector.

On Thursday, two of France’s main farming unions announced a suspension of the protest, urging demonstrators to take their tractors off the streets. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had earlier promised cash, an easing of regulations and protection against unfair competition.

Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau said Friday that the worst of the crisis was “pretty much behind us”.

“But the issues that we have to deal with and that have emerged in this crisis are still ahead of us,” he told CNews television.

Authorities said Thursday evening that many roadblocks across the country were being lifted or eased and farmers continued to move tractors off the streets on Friday, even though some blockades remained in place. In a number of other European countries including Italy, Spain and Greece farmers said protests would continue.

In Spain, three main farming unions said Friday they would continue to mobilise after a meeting with the agriculture minister, who pledged to “work” to address the crisis.

In Italy, farmers drove a convoy of tractors through the Sicilian town of Ragusa and protesters also blocked the port of Cagliari, on the neighbouring island of Sardinia. Activists called farmers to also converge on Rome, and a protest was set to take place on Saturday north of the capital.

On Thursday, thousands of protesters from Europe had gathered in Brussels, clogging the streets with 1,300 tractors.

‘Strong mobilisation’

Laurent Saint-Affre of the FDSEA union in France’s southern Aveyron department hailed “a historic, tough, strong mobilisation”. He warned farmers could take their tractors out on the streets again “in a few days” over remaining sticking points.

Speaking to RTL, Arnaud Gaillot, head of the Young Farmers (JA) union, pointed to a sense of “fatigue” after days of protests and a “desire to put things on hold.”

In the Yvelines department, west of Paris, the number of vehicles involved in a blockade had fallen from around twenty to seven tractors on Friday morning, police said.

The roadblocks on the A4 and A5 motorways in Seine-et-Marne east of the French capital had also been lifted.

A police source told AFP however that some protesters wanted to stay put until Saturday, while several “isolated groups” sought to remain in place until France’s huge Salon de l’Agriculture trade fair that opens on February 24.

Around ten tractors and around forty protesters were still blocking a tollgate in Saint-Quentin Fallavier in southeastern France, an AFP correspondent saw.

“We haven’t got what we’re fighting for,” said farmer Isabelle Douillon, referring to better pay.

A new roadblock was also set up on Friday morning at a tollgate near the city of Saint-Quentin in northern France, according to one activist, Bruno Cardot, who called the action the farmers’ “last stand.”

‘Fundamental question’

The FNSEA, France’s biggest rural union, wants to see the first government measures implemented by the start of the trade fair and a law passed by June, its head Arnaud Rousseau said on BFMTV.

Another major union, the Farmers’ Confederation (Confederation Paysanne), said it would remain mobilised because “the fundamental question of income” was “still not being tackled head-on by the government”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said after talks in Brussels Thursday with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen that France had managed to
persuade the EU to “impose stricter rules” for cereal and poultry imports, including from war-torn Ukraine.

In a key announcement designed to break the deadlock, the government announced Thursday France would pause its Ecophyto programme aimed at reducing the use of pesticides in farming.

Environmental groups slammed the move but government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot sought to defend the decision, saying environmental policies should be based “on concrete realities”.

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PROTESTS

Two dead and hundreds hurt in New Caledonia unrest: France

Two people have been killed and hundreds more injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia, as anger over constitutional reforms from Paris boiled over.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:00 CEST
Two dead and hundreds hurt in New Caledonia unrest: France

What began as pro-independence demonstrations has spiralled into three days of the worst violence seen on the French Pacific archipelago since the 1980s.

Despite heavily armed security forces fanning out across the capital Noumea, and the ordering of a nighttime curfew, rioting continued overnight virtually unabated.

Hundreds of people including “around 100” police and gendarmes have been injured in the unrest, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in Paris.

One person had been shot dead overnight but authorities were yet to establish the circumstances that led to the incident, Darmanin said, adding that dozens of homes and businesses had been torched.

The office of the High Commissioner, France’s top representative in New Caledonia, later Wednesday reported a second death in the riots, without giving any details of the circumstances.

President Emmanual Macron cancelled a planned domestic trip and moved Wednesday’s regular cabinet meeting to hold a crisis meeting with key ministers on New Caledonia, his office said.

In Noumea and the commune of Paita there were reports of several exchanges of fire between civil defence groups and rioters.

Streets in the capital were pocked by the shells of burned-out cars and buildings, including a sports store and a large concrete climbing wall.

“Numerous arsons and pillaging of shops, infrastructure and public buildings – including primary and secondary schools – were carried out,” said the High Commission.

Security forces had managed to regain control of Noumea’s prison, which holds about 50 inmates, after an uprising and escape attempt by prisoners, it said in a statement.

Police have arrested more than 130 people since the riots broke out Monday night, with dozens placed in detention to face court hearings, the commission said.

A night-time curfew was extended, along with bans on gatherings, the carrying of weapons and the sale of alcohol.

La Tontouta International Airport remained closed to commercial flights.

As rioters took to the streets, France’s lower house of parliament 17,000 kilometres (10,600 miles) away voted in favour of a constitutional change bitterly opposed by indigenous Kanaks.

The reform – which must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament – would give a vote to people who have lived in New Caledonia for 10 years.

Pro-independence forces say it would dilute the share of the vote held by Kanaks, the Indigenous group that makes up about 41 percent of the population and the major force in the pro-independence movement.

Macron urged calm in a letter to the territory’s representatives, calling on them to “unambiguously condemn” the “disgraceful and unacceptable” violence.

Macron said French lawmakers would vote to definitively adopt the constitutional change by the end of June unless New Caledonia’s opposing sides agree on a new text that “takes into account the progress made and everyone’s aspirations”.

The French leader has been seeking to reassert his country’s importance in the Pacific region, where China and the United States are vying for influence.

Lying between Australia and Fiji, New Caledonia is one of several French territories spanning the globe from the Caribbean and Indian Ocean to the Pacific in the post-colonial era.

In the Noumea Accord of 1998, France vowed to gradually give more political power to the Pacific island territory of nearly 300,000 people.

As part of the agreement, New Caledonia has held three referendums over its ties with France, all rejecting independence.

But the independence movement retains support, particularly among the Indigenous Kanak people.

The Noumea Accord has also meant that New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 – depriving island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere since then of a vote in provincial polls.

A New Caledonia pro-independence leader, Daniel Goa, asked people to “go home”, and condemned the looting.

But “the unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France take control of them,” he added.

The main figure of the anti-independence camp, former minister Sonia Backes, denounced what she described as anti-white racism of demonstrators who burned down the house of her father, a man in his 70s who was evacuated by the security forces.

“If he was not attacked because he was my father, he was at least attacked because he was white,” she told France’s BFM TV.

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