Macron Makes Last-Ditch Bid to Stop Farmers Blockading Paris

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(Bloomberg) — Emmanuel Macron’s government will try to defuse French farmers’ fury over falling incomes and stringent European regulations, in an attempt to stop demonstrations from escalating into a blockade of Paris.

Protests that began in the south of France have spread through the week, as farmers blocked major roads and snarled traffic around the country with go-slow processions. Some unions have urged their members to cut off the main routes into Paris on Friday afternoon.

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Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was appointed less than a month ago to inject fresh impetus into a government torn by disagreements on immigration, is due to unveil the administration’s response later Friday. France is tackling protests which mirror dissent in European countries including Germany and Poland. 

The government is expected to announce measures to cut red tape and offset the impact of shrinking subsidies on non-road diesel. It may also pledge to speed up financial handouts for farmers who have been affected by floods or cattle disease.

“There’s a real risk of a general flare-up,” said Hortense de Padirac, a Paris-based political scientist who teaches at the Sciences Po university. “Attal will have to show he’s up to the mission he’s been assigned to by the president. It’s Attal’s credibility that is at stake.”

Many of the farmers’ complaints have focused on what they see as a tangle of ever-shifting regulations that have pushed many of them to the brink of bankruptcy. The European Union began a so-called strategic dialog Thursday to address growing divisions over agriculture across the bloc. But the effort is a slow-moving process and it’s unclear how much the EU can do soon to ease the protests.

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While there has been little violence so far, the French farmers’ complaints over living costs and fuel prices echo Yellow Vest protests that kicked off in 2018 and plagued Macron’s first term as president. 

In 2019, Macron responded to the Yellow Vests with tax cuts and support for low earners that the government at the time estimated cost as much as €17 billion ($18.5 billion). But this time, he has less room for maneuver as his government struggles to tackle a vast debt burden built up during the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis. 

On Wednesday, the leading French union FNSEA grouped the grievances into a litany of demands ranging from tax credits for agricultural fuel to dispensations from EU rules on fallow land. “Incomprehensible decisions are raining down on our sector,” the union said. “We need deep structural change.” 

Part of the challenge for Macron and Attal is the huge public backing for the farmers’ protests, despite spreading travel chaos. According to an Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey of 1,005 people for newspaper Le Figaro, 89% of French people support the movement. 

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Far-right parties are latching on to the protests to bolster their campaign for the European Parliament elections in June. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is already ahead of Macron’s political grouping, according to opinion polls. 

“As far as the capital is concerned, we’re growing in power and the movement is spreading to the whole of France,” Arnaud Gaillot, head of the young farmers’ union Jeunes Agriculteurs, told BFM TV from a protest on the A6 highway in the Yonne area southeast of Paris. 

“The capital should be one of the last options, but we can imagine all sorts of things,” Gaillot said. “The ball is in the government’s court to avoid paralyzing a country that has other problems.”

—With assistance from Alan Katz.

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