In scenes eerily reminiscent of the trucker’s protest in Canada, farmers all across Europe are rolling out their tractors — and flocks of sheep — to block city streets from Paris to Brussels to Berlin and even Romania and Poland.All are in response to the European Union’s so-called ‘Green Deal’ policies they say will result in punitive environmental regulations and ultimately, higher energy costs. The farmers say they want lower taxes and higher subsidies.The program calls for vast cuts to the use of diesel fuel, nitrate-based fertilizers and the size of ranchers’ herds in order to minimize the output of greenhouse gases. A 2020 US Department of Commerce study found the policies, if implemented, could lead to an 11% drop in food production and a 17% increase in food prices — including 36% for milk and 42% for meat..The EU trade commissioner, Vladislav Dombrovskis, defended the ‘Green Deal’ as a long-term initiative aimed at reaching net-zero by 2050.The ongoing unrest comes after one farmer was killed south of Toulouse when a car drove through a blockade and struck three people. The driver, identified as an Armenian national, is facing deportation after being charged with involuntary homicide.On Friday, protests were expected in 85 of France’s 100 departments — or administrative regions, 95 of which are in Paris — and also in cities, including Lyon, Bordeaux, Amiens, Orange, Bourges, Bayonne, Agen, Périgueux and Angoulême."We want to show that, in France as in the rest of the EU, it's not technocrats — who have no idea how hard or difficult it is to produce quality product in France — who will decide," Patrick Legras, a farmer and member of French farmers' union Coordination Rurale, told Euronews.The disturbances are ahead of European Parliament elections on June 6, which also happens to be the 80th anniversary of D-Day..The French protests started in the southwest area of the country where farmers blocked roads with tractors to protest low prices for produce while having to pay mandated price increases on diesel fuel. It’s also a key issue that provoked German protests, where the government slashed agricultural fuel subsidies to offset budget deficits even as it spends hundreds of billions of euros on rearmament against Russia.On Friday, German farmers were preparing to blockade Berlin. Authorities in both countries were worried the protests could turn violent after the so-called ‘yellow vest’ protests last year.French agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau indicated the government would toe a hard line against the farmers, saying he would “not take the road of demagogy or the easy way out” in talks. France has 390,000 farms of various sizes, from industrial farms to very small operations, where farmers retire on poverty pensions of barely €400 per month. French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to increase military spending by more than €100 billion before 2030, funded with last year’s massively unpopular pension cut.
