Another year, another protest. French farmers are at it again. France’s Coordination Rurale trade union is calling for another round of massive protests starting this week. Unions say that French farmers ‘won’t die in silence’. Cue tractors clogging motorways, hay bales set ablaze in front of government offices, and manure dumped on city streets. This time, the protests are a direct challenge to France’s new government, barely weeks into its term. But let’s be honest: this isn’t really about François Bayrou, the freshly appointed Prime Minister, nor President Emmanuel Macron.
The French press will dance around the elephant in the room, but the farmers know the truth. This is about Brussels, not Paris. The policies strangling French agriculture – crippling environmental regulations, predatory trade deals, and dwindling subsidies – are made in the European Union’s corridors of power.
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