French farmers block motorways around Paris aheads of talks with PM

from France 24

Protests have been staged in recent weeks across France, a major agricultural producer, by farmers angry about shrinking incomes, red tape and environmental policies they say undermine their ability to compete with other countries. 

Protesting farmers blocked the A13 highway to the west of the capital, the A4 to the east and the A6, which saw hundreds of tractors rolling towards Paris from the south.

By mid-afternoon they appeared to have met their objective of establishing eight chokepoints on major roads into Paris, according to Sytadin, a traffic monitoring service.

A banner on one tractor in the protest read: "We will not die in silence."

"We need answers," said Karine Duc, a farmer in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department, as she joined a convoy of tractors heading for Paris.

"This is the final battle for farming. It's a question of survival," she told AFP...

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