Traffic jams as farm workers block French motorways

A protest by French agriculture workers led to several hours of traffic jams of up to 20 kilometres on the A1 and A25 motorways around the northern town of Lille on Tuesday morning.

Floflo62/Wikimedia Commons

The protestors were angry at what they say is a mountain of rules and regulations particularly in connection with a regional scheme on ecology and biodiversity.

35 tractors blocked both lanes of the A25 and 19 tractors blocked three lanes of the northbound A1 between Paris and Lille.

A delegation of protestors also went into Lille town centre where officials agreed to meet them.

About a hundred tractors were involved in action in Calais, and there were also demonstrations in Saint-Omer, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Montreuil.

The movement was led by Young Agriculture Workers group as the Northern branch of the FNSEA, one of the main agricultural sector unions.

Xavier Beulin of the FNSEA said his union “would almost certainly announce a bigger protest in the coming days.”

“Not a week goes by without new regulations, new norms being imposed….It is time to return for two or three years to a France which gets back to work, which produces things, which innovates”, he said.

“You can feel that things are changing, and that there is a will to simplify things but its not happening quickly enough and new rules are still being added.”