In front of the Agen train station in southwestern France, trucks unload dirt, manure and tires. In Draguinnan, also in the south of the French country, several flocks of sheep occupy their main square and, in Montpellier and Bordeaux, they burn containers. All these acts are part of the protest that French farmers are carrying outwho demand that the Government take measures to face competition from products from other countries.

For this reason, the Paris region sections of the two main agricultural unions, the conservative FDSEA and the progressive Young Farmers, have promoted “blockade” actions of the city starting this Friday afternoon if Prime Minister Gabriel Attal does not respond to their claims.

To do this, they launched a call to farmers to occupy the main highways leading to Paris, with the intention that the protest would gain intensity and impact, within the generalized movement in the rest of Europe.

“It is the fault of the supermarkets and the State for not taking measures in favor of the agricultural sector,” says a farmer who participates in the protest. French farmers are also seeking to paralyze the country, blocking extremely important roads due to their connection to the north: “We will do everything possible to reach Paris,” says another.

It is in the capital where they want to exert maximum pressure with a clear objective: for the protest to gain intensity and impact in Brussels as well. Under the union umbrella, farmers demand better wages, the reduction of environmental restrictions, aid against rising fuel prices and increased protection of the countryside against imports from other countries.

In fact, they fear that the entry into the European Union by Ukraine, a major agricultural exporter, will further aggravate a situation, they say, that is increasingly unsustainable.

“We want to compete with the same weapons,” the farmers repeated at the different protest points spread across the country, where they also want administrative simplification and to rethink some European regulations that, they consider, harm them.

“We need a commitment at the level of the Government and the President of the Republic (Emmanuel Macron), such as the issue of the CAP (European agricultural subsidies), technical matters, everything depends a lot on what is decided in Brussels. We cling to Europe , but we have to question it because of the bureaucratic way in which it acts,” said Rousseau.

The farmers’ representatives cited certain European environmental rules as a brake and reaffirmed their rejection of free trade agreements such as the EU-Mercosur, which has been shelved due to the rejection of countries like France, for not being “a matter of a reciprocal pact” and warned that Ukraine’s entry is “a matter of concern.”

“Ukraine must be supported, but it is true that (if it joins the community club) products will enter (France) on a massive scale,” Gaillot warned, alluding to the Ukrainian agricultural power and a possible capacity to damage the competitiveness of the French farmers.

Minister Fesneau, who mentioned the word “sovereignty” on several occasions, announced that there will be some first measures in the short term. “There are simplification issues in which we can advance quickly,” he added.

In addition to the EU, the unions also criticize the delay in the delivery of some public aid, the planned end of the subsidy for agricultural diesel, the increasing bureaucratic burden or the prices imposed by the agri-food industries are the main complaints of the farmers and ranchers.