French farmers in tractors have blocked roads around the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe in protest at an imminent EU trade deal with South American countries that they say will create unfair competition.
The farmers blockaded motorways outside Paris on Thursday and dozens of tractors overran police checkpoints to reach the city centre in a pre-dawn protest organised by the Coordination Rurale union.
EU states are due to vote on Friday on the deal with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, the four members of the South American trade bloc known as Mercosur. If ratified, it would create a common market of nearly 800 million people, boosting EU exports of vehicles, machinery, wines and spirits.
Many European farmers fear being undercut by an influx of cheaper agricultural products from the Mercosur common market. Belgian farmers have also protested, rolling more than 1,000 tractors into Brussels last month.
“We are between resentment and despair. We have a feeling of abandonment – with Mercosur being an example,” Stéphane Pelletier, a senior member of Coordination Rurale, told Reuters beneath the Eiffel Tower.
The French government said authorities would “not stand by”. Blocking roads or “attempting to gather in front of parliament – with all the symbolism that entails – is, once again, illegal”, the government spokesperson Maud Bregeon told French radio.
Surrounded by a heavy police presence, farmers also demonstrated in front of French parliament’s lower house, heckling the national assembly president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, when she came out to meet them.
The Mercosur deal is backed by Germany and Spain but France, mindful of its powerful farming lobby, has long been fiercely opposed. Paris has won significant last-minute concessions but, with municipal elections due in March, remains wary of the deal.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, confirmed on Thursday that he would vote against the deal, citing “unanimous political rejection” in France, but this seemed unlikely to derail it.
The EU and Mercosur blocs have held negotiations over the deal for the past 26 years, with talks given added momentum by the Trump administration’s protectionist agenda and the rapidly growing impact of competition from China.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, finally signed the accord in late 2024, despite opposition from France, Poland and a couple of smaller states, but it has yet to be ratified by EU member states and parliament.
The free trade accord aims to cut South American tariffs on European cars, clothes, food, fine wines and medicines. In exchange, the EU will open its markets, although it has set limits on imports of beef, pork, ethanol, honey and sugar.
In an attempt to win over member states, the commission this week proposed making an extra €45bn of EU funding available to farmers in the bloc’s next seven-year budget, largely offsetting a planned 20% cut in agricultural funding.
France had demanded further changes, including tougher safeguards allowing the EU to reimpose trade tariffs if prices fall by 5%, rather than the 8% stipulated in the accord. It also sought permission to ban imports of crops grown with pesticides, which are banned in the EU.
However, the commission’s latest offer appears to have won over Italy, whose support was long uncertain. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, this week hailed what she called a “commonsense approach to supporting European agriculture”.
While Rome is also believed to still be pushing for tougher price safeguards, analysts believe Italy’s apparent backing should now allow the deal to be approved by a qualified majority of member states on Friday, with or without French support.
Under the qualified majority system, the votes of 15 of the EU’s 27 states representing 65% of its population are needed for the accord to be approved. It could be blocked by at least four countries representing 35% or more of the EU’s population.
Without the 13% of the bloc’s population represented by what is, in effect, Italy’s casting vote, France – whose opposition to the accord is shared by Ireland, Poland and Hungary – seems unlikely to have the numbers to block it.
