AS IT HAPPENED
France’s two major farmers unions announced Thursday their decision to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country, in a dramatic development shortly after the French prime minister unveiled a new set of measures they see as “tangible progress”. However, the president of the larger FNSEA union said that the movement “was not ending”, but is “transforming and will stay active”. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
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Summary:
- France’s two major farmers unions announced Thursday their decision to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country.
- French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal offered a slew of new concessions to farmers on Thursday. Measures included an annual 150 million euros for livestock farmers and a ban on food imports treated with thiacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide already banned in France.
- Police estimated that some 1,000 tractors blocked several major thoroughfares on Thursday in Brussels, where EU leaders are gathered for a summit on providing aid to Ukraine. French farmers protesting over pay, taxes and regulations kept up roadblocks on Thursday as eyes turned to Brussels in hopes of more EU concessions for the agriculture sector.
- Authorities in France released 79 farmers who were detained Wednesday after an incursion at the Rungis wholesale food market, Europe’s largest, north of Paris.
- French President Emmanuel Macron was set to meet with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday ahead of the EU summit. Macron’s office said the two would discuss “the future of European farming”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
