Farmers enter Paris on tractors to rage against trade deal

French farmers rolled into Paris on tractors Thursday in a show of anger against an EU trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur they fear will create unfair competition, as the government warned against “illegal” protest actions. Dozens of tractors arrived before dawn and drove through Paris, with some pausing at the Eiffel Tower and others at the Arc de Triomphe, in a protest organised by the Rural Confederation union. “We said we’d come up to Paris — here we are,” said Ludovic Ducloux, co-head of one of the union’s chapters.

One of the tractors bore the message “No To Mercosur”, referring to the deal with four South American nations. The deal would create one of the world’s biggest free-trade areas and help the 27-nation EU to export more vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America. But farmers fear being undercut by a flow of cheaper goods from agricultural giant Brazil and its neighbours.

“We’re not here to cause trouble,” Damien Cornier, a 49-year-old farmer from the northwest Eure region, told AFP. We just want to work and make a living from our profession. Rural Confederation (CR) president Bertrand Venteau told AFP the farmers would peacefully demonstrate at symbolic Parisian sites, even if it meant they ended up in police custody. French policymakers have contributed to the “death of French agriculture over the past 30 years”, the union president later told Europe 1 radio.