A woman demonstrating with her husband and teenage daughter at a French farm checkpoint in southwestern France was killed in a serious accident when a car drove into the group of protesters. According to witnesses on site, the man and the girl were seriously injured. The three occupants of the car were arrested, police said. The accident occurred this morning at 5:45 a.m. in Pamiers.
French farmers have been demonstrating across the country for several days to demand administrative simplifications and faster compensation for natural disasters.
“In the particular moment in which agriculture finds itself, such a drama is difficult to endure,” the leader of the farmers' union, Arnaud Rousseau, told Rmc, announcing the end of the checkpoint on national road 20 where the accident occurred .
After an unsuccessful meeting with the government, the protest movement is now expanding to new streets and highways. During the night, around thirty tractors with trailers blocked traffic on the A7 motorway in both directions, between Lyon and Valence, in the center of the country. The inconvenience for motorists was great as they were diverted onto alternate roads which immediately filled with vehicles.
Further protests block the A64 and A63 motorways in the French Pyrenees. Entry into Spain remains possible for the time being. The A62 in Aquitaine (southwest) was also blocked by around ten tractors.
Rail traffic was also disrupted, with dozens of farmers collecting tires on the tracks, again in New Aquitaine. The situation in the east is also becoming increasingly complicated, with blockades on the border with Germany, near the Saar Bridge.
Yesterday, ahead of the meeting with the government, Rousseau said he expected statements from Prime Minister Gabriel Attal “that would significantly change the situation.” No final statement.
Farmers complain that they are overwhelmed by bureaucracy and that their living standards are declining. Their main demands include administrative simplifications, no new bans on pesticides, a halt to diesel price increases for tractors and agricultural vehicles, immediate compensation in the event of natural disasters and the full application of the law to better pay agricultural workers by industrialists and large traders. Prime Minister Attal has promised to “make life easier” for workers in this sector, but the government fears an escalation of the protest, also in view of initiatives similar to the French ones taking place in the Netherlands, Romania, Germany or Poland and often opposed they direct tax increases and the European “Green Pact”.
France: Protester Killed, Macron “Government Offers Solutions”
The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macronwrote a message on .
Macron added that “the Pamiers tragedy shocks us all. “I think with emotion of the victims,” he concludes, “and of their grieving families.”
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