Frédéric Michel / Photo credit: Estelle Ruiz / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 8:30 a.m., February 1, 2024

Farmers in the south of France remain mobilized. On the A8, operators are blocking a toll near Fréjus, in the France-Italy direction. On site, everyone remains determined to make themselves heard, despite tensions with the police. 

Farmers' blockades continue almost everywhere in France. According to a latest count, around 150 actions are underway throughout the territory. Latest: the blocking of the A8, at the Capitou toll, near Fréjus. Since Wednesday morning, around a hundred tractors and more than 200 farmers have been blocking traffic in the France-Italy direction. 

This Thursday morning, neither the barely positive temperatures nor the fog dampened the determination of farmers like Jean-Marie: "We stayed up all night around the braziers because the temperature dropped significantly all night. The little mistral got up this morning. And then it will slowly wake up later. We are determined to go all the way,” he assures. 

>> READ ALSO -

 LIVE - Farmers' blockades: intrusion at Rungis, the anger of farmers invites itself to the European summit

To be heard

For Marc, intern, the mobilization will last. “The idea is to stay two or three days so that our message is heard and so that our rights are finally taken into consideration. Especially since the announcements are far from responding to a tenth of our concerns, it "It's obvious," he says. 

But on the blockage, some would like to occupy the second direction of traffic of the toll, like Baptiste, wine grower: "As soon as we want to do things that are a little outside the norm, in particular by tagging foreign trucks, by saying that what "they transport, it's not French but it's going to be sold in France and therefore, these people are stealing our work and the market, we're forbidden from doing so", he gets annoyed. 

"It's disgusting"

“When we see that we have colleagues who wanted to block Rungis, they were arrested just for that, because they forced their way through. It’s disgusting,” he continues. “We even wanted to do a free toll operation, but we were forbidden to do so.” In the sense that traffic has not been interrupted, many of them in their cars and trucks are honking their horns in a sign of support.