Some road hauliers authorized to drive this weekend after farmers' blockades

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Nicolas Guyonnet / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 1:36 p.m., January 27, 2024

Certain road transport vehicles are exceptionally authorized to drive this weekend after traffic difficulties this week triggered by farmers' demonstrations, it is indicated in a decree published on Saturday in the Official Journal. The traffic bans normally planned for goods transport vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tonnes during the weekend "are lifted from Saturday January 27, 2024 at 10 a.m. to Monday January 29, 2024 at 10 a.m.", after "the difficulties of traffic induced by the farmers' demonstrations", describes the decree.

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The aim is to “enable the completion of transport operations started before Saturday January 27 at 10 p.m.”, as well as “the return of road drivers whose transport operations have been disrupted” to their “usual resting place”. The blocking of dozens of highways by angry farmers across France has disrupted the transport of goods this week, throwing thousands of trucks onto secondary roads.

Some trucks were stopped or even emptied of their goods. Demonstrators emptied “foreign trucks, most of them Spanish, Moroccan or Bulgarian,” Sandrine Roussin, president of the FDSEA union in Drôme, told AFP on Friday. Farmers have various demands, ranging from a minimum price for their products to the payment of long-overdue aid or compensation, including a moratorium on the ban on pesticides.

The mobilization eased this Saturday

To try to extinguish the rising revolt in the countryside where many are no longer able to make a living from their profession, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal unveiled emergency measures on Friday, acceding to some of the demands: the abandonment of the increase in the tax on non-road diesel (GNR), inflated compensation for breeders affected by MHE cattle disease, heavy sanctions against three agri-food manufacturers not respecting the Egalim laws on prices.

If these announcements were not enough to definitively calm the anger of the farmers, the mobilization nevertheless eased on Saturday: at 6:00 a.m., there were less than 40 actions affecting 28 departments, according to the gendarmerie.

The Young Farmers' Union announced the lifting of its blockades at midday to "rest" and "readapt (its) strategy" before resuming the blockages at the start of next week, thus leaving the way partially clear for truck drivers.