European farmers block French roads and head to Brussels to protest wages and bureaucratic meddling

By RAF CASERT and SYLVIE CORBET
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Farmers in France have staged protests across the country and in Brussels against low wages and what they consider to be excessive regulation, mounting costs and other problems. Roadblocks spread in many French regions on Wednesday. The demonstrations come a day after a farmer and her daughter died in a traffic collision at a protest barricade. Some farmers are planning to protest in Brussels where French farmers’ union Rural Coordination has called for a demonstration against the “ever-increasing constraints of European regulations and ever-lower incomes.” The protests are the first major challenge for newly appointed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his government. Similar anger erupted recently in other countries of the European Union.