500 tractors in Paris, powerful images

Farmers demonstrate in Paris this Wednesday. Coming to the capital with their tractors, they want to make their anger heard on several subjects.

Tractors on the ring road and on the cobblestones of Paris: the image is rare but it testifies to the fed up of the farmers, who decided to let their anger burst. This Wednesday, February 8, 2023, around 500 tractors are driving in the capital, right behind the Invalides, for a total of 2,000 farmers who came to cry out in dismay at “the untenable regulatory constraints” (read below). Arrived by the southern ring road on which they carried out a snail operation, the farmers drove to the Porte de Versailles where they left, then going up the rue de Vaugirard at very low speed to finish at the Invalides. A few hundred meters away is the Ministry of Agriculture.

Why are farmers protesting?

The operation launched by the FNSEA, the main union in the agricultural sector, aims to denounce the government’s decision not to authorize the use of neonicotinoids for the cultivation of sugar beet, following a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union . But that’s not all: soaring energy prices have pushed up production costs. They also want to be able to store water to irrigate their crops. Three weeks before the Agricultural Show, will those who feed the country manage to make progress?