French farmers drive 1,000 tractors towards Paris in blockade threat

French farmers are driving tractors towards Paris as they start to make good on a threat to blockade the French capital for an indefinite period in a row over working conditions.

Protesters rejected concessions made by the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, at the weekend and promised to “besiege” Paris by paralysing the seven main motorways into the city by early afternoon, The Guardian reports.

At least 1,000 tractors were expected to be used in the blockade. They were expected to remain between 20-25 miles from the city centre, with the aim of restricting access in and out. This could disrupt access to the Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport north of the city and Orly airport in the south, as well as the region’s main fresh food market at Rungis.

The authorities were advising drivers to cancel or postpone all non-essential road travel.

Farmers, particularly the country’s thousands of independent producers, say they are being strangled by EU and French bureaucracy and regulations and claim the traditional way of rural life is facing collapse. They are demanding fairer prices for produce, the continuation of subsidies on the agricultural diesel used to run their tractors and other vehicles, and financial aid for organic farmers.

The interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said 15,000 police and gendarmes had been mobilised to prevent the tractors from entering Paris and other cities where protests are happening, and to keep access open to the airports and Rungis.

Several farmers’ union leaders have called on members to exert maximum pressure on the government this week, particularly in the run-up to Attal’s speech to parliament on Tuesday outlining his government’s political programme.

In south-west France, protesters continued blocking roads outside Pau, Bayonne and Agen over the weekend and farmers planned to lay siege to Lyon from Monday afternoon. Farmers have also begun blocking access to ski resorts in the Pyrenees.

Arnaud Rousseau, the leader of the main farming union the FNSEA, said the campaign and blockades would continue until at least February 1, when President Emmanuel Macron will join other leaders for a meeting of the European Council.

On Monday morning, the agriculture minister, Marc Fesneau, said there would be new announcements addressing the protests within 48 hours and that he was travelling to Brussels this week.

“We continue to work with their representatives … we are working with them to propose a certain number of measures that will show the willingness of the government to address the crisis,” Fesneau told French television.

The French government has been taken by surprise by the depth of anger among farmers. Several months ago young farmers turned town and village road signs upside down in protest but the action has escalated in the last week.