‘The world is changing too fast for us’: organic farmers on urgency of French protests
GuardianJan 29
Paris: Farmers Block Motorways With Tractor Barricades as 'Siege' Begins
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The Facts
French farmers descended on Paris with tractor barricades and slow-driving convoys on Monday after the government's pro-agriculture measures failed to defuse their protests for better pay and streamlined regulations. The protestors characterized their intent to disrupt Paris as a "siege."
The country's two largest farming unions have said that their members would block the Rungis wholesale food market as well as occupy all the major roads leading to the capital to pressure the government to meet their demands.
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Echoing the peasant wars of the Middle Ages, farmers in Europe are now staging mass demonstrations against the crumbling postwar European power structures that have shifted onto their own food suppliers the burdens of sustaining the prolonged agony of the neoliberal US world empire. Yet, mainstream media have downplayed this continent-wide farming revolution as a minor development — as if they have been instructed what and what not to cover.
Pro-establishment narrative
Farmers have reasons to protest, but the far-right has fueled their outrage against the EU with false claims to attract new voters in the run-up to European elections this summer, given that only one-quarter of the French farming community cast a far-right vote in the past presidential elections. Meanwhile, the French government has been left with a delicate balance to walk as it must meet their demands to prevent another volatile chapter in the "Gilets Jaunes" yellow vests movement.
