French Farmers Take To The Streets Of Paris With 1,000-Tractor Protest

This past week, a whopping 1,733 tractors from across France (and their operators) took to the streets of Paris to protest the phenomenally difficult industry, as part of the #1000tractorprotest. Cheap imports from other countries, low prices on domestic goods, and high taxes, they say, have created an untenable environment.

Organized by the Federation of French Farm Unions (FNSEA) and the Young Farmers Organization (Jeunes Agriculteurs), the protest found tractors spray-painted with various slogans (“Hollande: on n’est dans la merde!” reads one, which means, sort of, “Mr. President, we are up shit’s creek!”) parked in crowded parts of Paris to block traffic and make themselves seen. Production of high-quality produce, meat, and dairy is seen as a central point of pride in France, and the farmers may be tapping into a groundswell of support that most countries don’t have.

The organizers are calling for taxes on imported goods, which could give French farmers a fighting change to compete in a marketplace that, like any other, is all about the bottom line. Supermarkets in France, as in the UK, compete with each other to offer the lowest prices, which is good for consumers but not so much for farmers, who are forced to lower their own prices to unsustainable levels.