French Farmers Target Food Imports as Protests Against Mercosur Deal Escalate
French farmers stepped up protests on Monday by stopping trucks at the country’s largest container port and along a major motorway north of Paris, carrying out symbolic inspections of imported food as opposition to the EU-Mercosur trade agreement continues to grow.
In France — the European Union’s biggest agricultural producer — farmers have been demonstrating for weeks over a range of grievances, with the proposed trade pact between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc at the center of their anger.
Tensions escalated after most EU member states approved the agreement on Friday, despite France voting against it. The decision has intensified pressure on the French government from both farmers and opposition parties, some of which have since submitted no-confidence motions.
At the northern port of Le Havre, dozens of members of the Young Farmers union gathered with tractors over the weekend and began inspecting food trucks exiting the port on Monday.
Farmers Denounce “Unfair Competition”
“This action is mainly about sounding the alarm once again and keeping the pressure on regarding the Mercosur agreement,” said Justin Lemaitre, secretary general of a local branch of the union.
“It is very hard to accept such unfair competition, where products we produce in Europe are imported from the other side of the world,” Lemaitre said. He added that protesters at Le Havre had identified imports including mushrooms and sheep offal originating from China.
Similar actions were reported at a toll booth on the A1 motorway near the northern city of Lille, where farmers from the Coordination Rurale union were conducting checks on lorries traveling toward Paris, according to union spokesperson Patrick Legras.
Elsewhere across the country, farmers were also blocking fuel depots at the Atlantic port of La Rochelle and in the Savoie region in the French Alps. Unions and local media reported additional blockades at a cereal port in Bayonne, in southwestern France.
Protest actions are set to intensify further, with farmers planning to drive tractors into Paris on Tuesday. The demonstration follows a surprise protest in the capital last Thursday and comes ahead of a larger gathering scheduled for January 20 in Strasbourg, outside the European Parliament.
French farming groups hope the European Parliament will ultimately block ratification of the Mercosur agreement, which they argue would expose European farmers to competition from imports produced under looser environmental, health and labor standards.