French Farmers Blocked Roads, Burned Tires to Protest Low Prices
- Raw-milk prices in France slumped 17% in past two years
- Livestock farm insolvencies at highest since at least 1998
French gendarmes stand on the RN 165 motorway facing protesters in a tractor bearing a sign reading 'Enough with Le Foll klore, help we are dying' (in reference to French Agriculture minister Stephane Le Foll) as farmers block the motorway access to Lorient, western France, on Jan. 25.
Photographer: Jean-Sebastien Evrard/AFP via Getty ImagesFrench farmers protested low prices they say are putting them out of business by blocking roads in Brittany and preventing access to the port city of La Rochelle with tractors and burning tires.
More than 100 farmers, many of them livestock breeders, on Monday closed highway RN165 near the city of Lorient in the west, said Thierry Coue, head of the regional chapter of farm union FNSEA. In La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast, about 100 livestock farmers and grain producers blocked entry to the city from the east, said local FNSEA chairman Francois Avrard.