Farmers protest, block roads in France
They demand aid from government as food prices fall
PARIS - French farmers struggling with slumping grain prices blanketed the Champs-Élysées with bales of hay and set them ablaze yesterday and blocked highways around the country as they demanded government help.
About 150 farmers blocked traffic and unloaded hay and tires onto the most famous shopping street in Paris. The protesters set the hay on fire, but firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.
Grain farmers were staging nationwide protests to call attention to their debts and other difficulties that have mounted as food prices have fallen from record highs in 2007.
More than 50,000 farmers, with 7,000 tractors and 1,000 animals, disrupted traffic throughout the country, from Toulouse in southern France to Calais on the English Channel and Moselle in the northeast.
In Rouen, in Normandy, farmers tried to attract attention to their cause by offering their products for free in front of the city’s famous cathedral.
“Mr. Sarkozy, agriculture merits as much as the banking or automobile sectors,’’ the FNSEA union said on its website, referring to the president and emergency aid the French government offered banks and carmakers to help them weather the global economic crisis.
Agriculture is still one of the most shielded economic sectors in the 27-nation European Union, but it has not been able to protect farmers from the global financial crisis, which caused demand to plummet.
EU officials say they still intend to create freer markets for European farm products gradually.
French farmers receive subsidies under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which in 2008 disbursed $71 billion mostly to large companies.
Jean-Michel Lemetayer, FNSEA chief, appealed to the government for a “major emergency plan,’’ including tax cuts to help French farmers compete with European rivals.
Lemetayer also wants $1.5 billion in loans for farmers, with the interest and fees paid by the government.
Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire appeared ready to meet some of the demands, saying he would urge President Nicolas Sarkozy to reduce the tax burden on farmers this year.
