The company’s four staff lived nearby and had been able to get into work and keep driving lorries.Ī key issue this week is policing. “We support the farmers’ blockades and their protest movement but we’ve got to keep working, we’ve got to keep the country going,” she said. There were 40km (25 miles) of traffic jams around Paris by late morning on Tuesday, as commuters were advised to carefully plan routes to avoid farmers who had shut key motorways.įrom her desk at small family-run transport company south-east of Paris, Tiffany was continuing to process orders for lorry deliveries and collections despite several hay-bale blockades outside Paris. Photograph: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty ImagesĪnract said bakers supported the farmers “because they are our suppliers and we pay them well, we pay a good price for their products … they supply us, they feed France.” But he said at some point, the government must find solutions for the crisis, which would imply discussions at EU level, and would take time. View image in fullscreen Farmers take a lunch break on the A20 highway near Saint-Maur, Indre, central France. There would be an impact on takings.” skip past newsletter promotion Also, every time there are strikes or protest movements like this, lots of people work from home because they can’t travel to work, so bakery snacks and sandwiches see a big drop in sales. Most bakers take flour deliveries every week, some every day, and so that’s very worrying. So without deliveries of items such as flour for bread, or fruit and vegetables for tarts, we would be in difficulty. Perishables – milk, eggs, cream – cannot be stored for long. In big cities, bakeries don’t have much space to store ingredients. He said: “There are two ways this could really affect us. But the fact that hundreds more farmers and tractors continued to block key motorways on the outskirts of Paris and across France this week was already having an impact on food deliveries.Īmid massive public support for the farmers, concern is growing that if road blockades intensify, it could cause difficulties in the food supply chain this week.īakeries across France have been sending free croissants and baguettes to the barricades to support the farmers, but many are concerned that if motorway blockades continue long-term, it could have an impact on lorries delivering flour and ingredients that would affect businesses making bread, sandwiches, cakes and pâtisserie.ĭominique Anract, a baker in western Paris, is president of the French confederation of Boulangerie and Pâtisserie as well as the European Federation of Bakers and the International Union of Bakers. The government and French police are seeking to stop any protests from reaching the vast food delivery bays of Rungis, south east of Paris. “Our objective is not to starve French people, but to feed them,” he told the Europe 1 broadcaster.Ībout 200 southern farmers were on a tractor go-slow snaking through the country and hoping to reach Rungis – Europe’s largest fresh food market – but they had paused in central France on Tuesday morning after police diverted them. But Arnaud Rousseau, the leader of the biggest farmers’ union, the FNSEA, said he was against any disruption of food distribution. Some farmers on the motorway barricades have spoken of “starving out Paris” in order to get government action on low prices for products, to cut red-tape, and, they argued, to “save the rural way of life”. Photograph: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty Images
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