by Roads were blocked across France, manure and agricultural waste fell outside public offices, and hay bales were scattered through fast food restaurants.
It started last year when farmers started to dismantle road signs and put them back upside down. Sometimes they used the slogan ‘on marche sur les têtes’ which means ‘we are walking on our heads’ as a reference to their life being turned upside down.
Since then, protests have become more turbulent and were struck by tragedy on Tuesday when a farmer and his daughter were killed and her husband seriously injured in a traffic collision at a protest barricade in the Ariège region of southwestern France.
France’s largest farmers’ union, FNSEA, says protests will continue “this week and as long as necessary”. He is considering nationwide action as the movement progresses.
It’s not just France, though. Already facing economic losses from the climate crisis, European farmers are speaking out against green policies that they say are contradictory, unfair and leave them worried for the future.
Why are French farmers angry?
French farmers’ anger stems from a complex mesh of different policies and funding cuts.
Agricultural diesel was to increase as subsidies were removed, farmers were to pay an extra €47 million a year in water use fees and they say complex regulations have made it difficult to know what is possible with them or they can’t do it.
They also oppose bans on pesticides and herbicides being driven by the EU Green Market and a new EU-wide treaty that could see more beef imported from Brazil and Argentina. Farmers claim that competing with these countries is extremely difficult because they are not bound by strict animal welfare rules.
Additional frustration comes with applying for the €9 billion a year in subsidies that France receives from the EU. According to farmers, at least one day a week is spent filling out the paperwork for them.
The number of conflicting policies, they say, leaves the agricultural industry trying to reduce the environmental impact of farming while increasing food production. With the number of people working to produce the food needed to feed France shrinking, many are worried about the future.
Some of their calls began in December when the government withdrew plans to raise license fees for pumping and releasing groundwater. pesticides. An increase in the price of diesel from the removal of subsidies has also been suspended and a proposed ban on the controversial weed glyphosate has been canceled in an attempt to appease the protesters.
After a meeting between the FSEA, the new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and the agriculture minister Marc Fesneau on Monday, the head of the union Arnaud Rousseau told the French media that there would be “no increase in actions as long as there are no concrete decisions there”.
The French government has said it has “heard their call” and on Wednesday told a press conference it would be making announcements in the coming days.
Anger is spreading across Europe
French farmers’ protests have been echoed by neighboring Holland and Germany. There is a common concern about unfair and unpredictable government decisions on agriculture.
Last year, Dutch farmers blocked roadsmanure was dumped in the streets and politicians protested outside the homes of regulations to reduce nitrogen emissions.
As one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters, the industry is responsible for around half of the Netherlands’ total nitrogen emissions. In 2019, the highest administrative court of the Netherlands ruled that the nitrogen permit system was failing to prevent these emissions from harming specially protected nature reserves known as the Natura 2000 network.
Although the initial ruling was not headline news, the government soon said it needed to take “major measures” to rectify the situation – including buying out and closing livestock farms.
The sudden announcement of the cuts left farmers feeling they were not being treated fairly. They had already made a significant reduction in nitrogen emissions over the past 30 years and funding for rural areas was reduced in favor of urban investment.
Previous government policies had encouraged them to expand and now indebted farmers were being told they needed to downsize their operations.
Protests led to the formation of the right-wing political party BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) which promised farmers more say in agricultural policy. In 2023, BBB won the provincial elections and, after the Senate election, ended up as the party with the highest number of seats in the Dutch Senate.
Anger is also growing in Germany more than plans to phase out fuel subsidies which are worth up to €3,000 a year for the average business. More long-term resentment about the unfair application of environmental policies only added fuel to the fire.
Farmers have been taking to the streets since December and on Monday arrived in Berlin by environmental activists. Heavy vehicles lined streets.
They say they support green, non-genetically modified farming – but that must come with subsidies or at least fair pricing for the food they produce. It’s a sentiment echoed by many taking to the streets across Europe.
Could farming be a big issue in the European election?
The unrest in the east of the EU has also increased with protests in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, where farmers have complained of unfair competition from cut-price grains from Ukraine.
I Romania and Bulgaria, tractors and trucks obstruct border crossings. Poland managed to resign its agriculture minister last April because of the dispute although new subsidies have eased the situation somewhat.
However, many continue to worry about excessively high taxes and increasingly stringent regulations. As farmers reel from the impact of droughts, floods and wildfires, they claim that green policies are only putting pressure on them.
Protests could spread further in the coming weeks as Spain and Italy are also about to join the movement. On Thursday, the European Commission is to begin strategic talks with farmers’ unions, agricultural businesses and experts as it tries to put out the fire.
But, as tensions grow, agriculture is starting to become a big issue across the EU ahead of the European Parliament elections in June.
