US EditionFrench farmers block Paris streets in protest against Mercosur trade deal
About 100 tractors blocked key Paris sites to protest a trade deal feared to harm French farmers and government cattle culls amid a bovine disease outbreak.
- On Jan 8, 2026, French farmers launched a pre-dawn blockade of roads into Paris and several landmarks, in a protest organised by the Confédération Rurale union.
- Opposing the Mercosur pact, farmers fear being undercut by cheaper South American goods and oppose mass culling ordered over lumpy skin disease.
- Protest convoys overran police checkpoints, drove along the Champs-Élysées and blocked roads around the Arc de Triomphe before dawn, while the Interior Ministry said about 20 tractors reached the city centre despite a ban and police largely avoided clashes.
- The action piled pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his government a day before EU member states were expected to vote on the accord, while the European Commission proposed making 45 billion euros of EU funding available earlier to farmers.
- Negotiators face renewed EU internal negotiations with a possible signing in Paraguay on January 12, backed by Germany, Spain, Italy, while Belgian farmers staged mass protests in Brussels in December.
154 Articles
154 Articles
Angrily against Brussels, French farmers have been challenging a free trade agreement for weeks.
For several weeks now, the anger of farmers has been rising in France. In particular, the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement is about to be signed after 25 years of negotiations.
Farmers in France, Greece Block Streets in Protest Over EU–Mercosur Trade Deal
Farmers in France and Greece took to the streets in their tractors on Jan. 8 to protest the European Union’s plans to move forward with a free trade deal with the South American Mercosur trading bloc. In France, farmers drove about 100 tractors into Paris and gathered in front of the National Assembly, the country’s lower house of parliament, to demonstrate their opposition to the deal. Meanwhile, in Greece on Jan. 8, farmers escalated nationwid…
Farmers Rise up Against the Eu-Mercosur Treaty: "We No Longer Know What to Produce to Get Out of It"
Hundreds of farmers came to Paris on Thursday 8 January to protest the adoption of the free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur, which is due to be signed in Brussels on Friday.
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