The weekend saw a series of protests from French farmers including blockades on several key highways, and on January 22 the protests were ongoing, Report informs referring to The Local France.
On Monday morning the A64 near Toulouse was partially blocked by a wall of tractors and straw bales, while similar blockades had been enacted in the southern départements of Gers and Ariège. Access to a nuclear power plant in Tarn-et-Garonne, southwest France, was also blocked by tractors.
Despite a meeting scheduled on January 22 evening with the prime minister to discuss their grievances, spokesmen for the FNSEA union said the demonstrations would continue.
Echoing farmers' protests around Europe, French agriculture workers are unhappy about heavy burdens of regulation and environmental standards which they say make it impossible to make a profit.
Their protests began in the autumn of 2023 with a campaign of turning village signposts upside down, but has escalated in recent days.
Among their grievances are the ever-increasing costs the sector faces and what they say is the choking effect of over-zealously imposed environmental regulations.
They are also angry about progressive tax increases on the non-road-use diesel that is essential to their work.
Similar issues have led farmers in other European nations to also take action.
Fleets of tractors have brought traffic to a standstill in Germany and Romania, and farmers have also protested in the Netherlands and Poland.