Dozens of arrests as French farmers enter wholesale food market
Dozens of protesting farmers were arrested in France on Wednesday after forcibly entering a key wholesale food market south of Paris, as convoys inched closer to the French capital.
At least 79 farmers were arrested, the broadcaster BFMTV reported on Wednesday evening, citing the police. There was damage to property in a storage area of the market.
The public prosecutor's office in Créteil said that 15 farmers had already been taken into police custody in the morning because they tried to blockade the market area with their vehicles.
The huge transshipment centre for agricultural products is a symbolically important destination for the farmers in France who have been protesting for over a week.
Riot police were out in force to protect the market, with armoured vehicles and helicopters deployed.
In order to prevent tractor columns from other parts of the country from advancing towards the Rungis International Market, Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin ordered additional armoured vehicles to the province on Wednesday.
They confronted farmers with their tractors on some highways, but there were no clashes. Some of the farmers bypassed the police blockades and continued on their way towards Paris.
Farmers have set up blockades on most highways around the capital. A ring of blockades also closed around the city of Lyon on Wednesday.
In the north of the country, farmers from Belgium and France blocked a number of border crossings between the two countries, the daily La Voix du Nord reported.
Darmanin earlier said that he did not want to have protesting farmers removed from blockades on motorways.
"There is no question of evacuating the farmers who are there," Darmanin told the France 2 radio station. But he named entering Paris, the capital's airports or the Rungis wholesale market as "red lines."
The farmers are demonstrating against falling incomes, EU environmental regulations and what they see as growing red tape.
The government has already made concessions - but it hasn't gone far enough for the farmers.
French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau promised further support for winegrowers totalling €80 million ($86.7 million) on Sud Radio.
On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron plans to discuss the problems of farmers with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron said that French farmers want clear measures regarding imports from Ukraine, clarity on the EU's planned free trade agreement with the South American economic alliance Mercosur, which France rejects in its current form, and flexibility on some rules of the EU's common agricultural policy.
