The French government is backtracking on its plan to scale back tax breaks on diesel for agricultural use. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said this on Friday during a meeting on a farm in southern France, international news agencies report. The meeting is aimed at calming the angry farmers. After a week of protests, they threatened again on Friday to block all major access roads to Paris.
“We will put agriculture above all else,” the prime minister promised between the hay bales. He announced “ten measures for immediate simplification.” In addition to the tax exemption for agricultural diesel, this includes fewer administrative inspections and clearer regulations for hedgerows (an earthen wall overgrown with trees and shrubs). It is not yet known whether these measures are enough to satisfy farmers.
Roadblocks
Since Thursday, January 18, France has been dominated by farmers’ protests. Dozens of angry farmers then blocked the A64 motorway, just below Toulouse. Since then, the protest has spread further and further across the country. An important highway between Paris and Lille was blocked on Friday and about four hundred kilometers of highway between Lyon and the Spanish border are also impassable due to blockages.
The farmers are resisting the rising costs of their business operations for months, from fuel to animal feed and seeds, while they are barely or not able to pass these on to the supermarkets and agricultural companies they sell to. The impending end of the tax break for their diesel was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Their protest gained extra momentum when a farmer and her 12-year-old daughter were killed on Tuesday after being hit at a roadblock in Pamiers, in the southern Ariège department.
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