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Farmers' demonstration at Frankfurt Airport: Declining protest?
Photo: Mike Seeboth / dpa
Several hundred farmers protested with their tractors around Frankfurt Airport on Saturday. At midday the police spoke of an estimated 400 tractors involved, the Hessian farmers' association put the number at up to 1,000. According to the dpa news agency, up to 2,000 tractors were announced. The comparatively low number of participants could indicate that the protests are losing some of their force.
As a police spokesman said, the farmers headed towards the airport around 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. A protest trip around the site was planned. The entrances to the terminals were not blocked, so that passengers could get to their planes unhindered. There were no other special incidents either.
A spokeswoman for the Hessian farmers' association said the aim of the protest was to demonstrate against the planned reduction in subsidies for agricultural diesel and to point out farmers' concerns about their international competitiveness.
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Farmers have recently been protesting again in other parts of the republic. On Friday, farmers near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony blocked a highway for hours with a barricade made of tree trunks and piles of dung. According to the police, around 60 demonstrators with 40 tractors and other vehicles took part in the unannounced action on the A2.
A kilometer-long backlog formed. After three and a half hours, the farmers, whose behavior was described by officials as “uncooperative,” left the blockade. However, they left the dumped items behind.
The police sharply criticized the action. "With the blockade of the A2, a clear limit was crossed," said the head of the operations department of the Braunschweig police station, Jörn Paulsen. These are crimes that endanger other people. The police pointed out the risk of life-threatening accidents as a result of the blockage of the motorway.
In Bremerhaven, farmers with tractors again blocked access to the seaport site there on Friday. According to the police, they followed the requirements and regularly opened the barriers to traffic, so that the disruption was initially limited. The port of Bremerhaven is the second most important German transshipment point for maritime trade after Hamburg.
ssu/AFP/dpa