French farmers lift border blockade after talks with PM

French farmers protesting pay and conditions and a prospective EU-Latin America trade deal on Wednesday lifted a blockade on the Spanish border after an expression of support from Prime Minister Michel Barnier.

Hard-line farmers' union Coordination Rurale (CR) lifted its roadblock for heavy trucks on the A9 motorway, which links southwestern France with Spain's northeast, police said.

Organisers had earlier said that they intended to maintain the barricade, designed to provoke shortages of produce in French supermarkets.

Barnier spoke with another CR branch from the western Lot-et-Garonne region by phone.

"Your Prime Minister knows and respects farmers. I will do everything I can... uphold the very many commitments that have been made," the PM, a former agriculture minister, said in comments captured by multiple media cameras including AFPTV.

So far the French political world up to and including President Emmanuel Macron has echoed rural opposition to the Mercosur deal.

Barnier's office told AFP that he had also spoken to Arnaud Rousseau, head of the heavyweight FNSEA farmers' union, by phone.

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Farmers in early 2024 launched massively disruptive demonstrations including blockading many motorways across France and Europe, over issues including low prices for their produce and environmental regulation.

French protesters secured concessions from the government -- but delivery was interrupted by President Emmanuel Macron's June call for new elections.

Resistance has been reinflamed by the prospect of an EU deal with the Mercosur bloc -- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay -- that would create the world's largest free-trade zone.

"The aim is to again put on the pressure to speak out against things that cannot be accepted. And, as I keep saying, always while respecting property and people," Rousseau told broadcaster Franceinfo on Wednesday.

The FNSEA chief was looking to set his outfit apart from CR, some of whose members have this week dumped waste outside regional government offices, broken into the French biodiversity authority and set up the motorway blockade.

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Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard told broadcaster France 2 that such methods were "unacceptable" and risked wearing down widespread public sympathy for farmers.

Renewed farmers' protests come weeks before elections to regional Chambers of Agriculture, at which smaller unions CR and Confederation Paysanne hope to loosen the FNSEA's tight grip.

Confederation Paysanne on Wednesday targeted the Rouen headquarters of Haropa Port, a state-owned firm that runs the Le Havre, Rouen and Paris ports.

"The only people who benefit from free trade are the food industry, large-scale farms, traders, chemical manufacturers and finance that speculates on all of it," said Mathieu Grenier, one of around 20 farmers demonstrating at the offices.

"For farmers, there will be a lot more losers than winners," he added.

Source: AFP