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Outraged French farmers have blocked a motorway to Spain as part of a nationwide protest over complaints they are not getting enough money for their produce and excessive bureaucracy.
Some Spanish trucks were also attacked at the border, Spain’s national federation of transport associations said, with Madrid’s agriculture minister branding the incidents as “absolutely unacceptable”.
Amid the tough economic climate, French farmers have been protesting to urge the government to do more to help them.
The protests are now affecting traffic trying to cross into France from Spain on the AP-7 highway that runs along the Mediterranean coast from southern Spain to the frontier. About 20,000 Spanish trucks cross into France daily.
Catalonia’s traffic service, Transit, said on X that northbound lanes of the AP-7 were blocked at the border municipality of La Jonquera, and shared online video footage showing long lines of trucks.
Fenadismer, Spain’s federation of transport associations, released footage of what it said was a Spanish truck driver being forced to empty 20,000 litres of wine from its tank, and accused French protesters of vandalism and destroying goods.
“Fair demands that involve intolerable acts lose all legitimacy,” it wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Agriculture minister Luis Planas told reporters on Thursday attacks on trucks were “absolutely unacceptable”.
French farmers block motorway to Spain
(Reuters)
“We fully respect the right to demonstrate and the right to freely express one’s opinion but always with respect and peacefully, not with violent means and coercion,” he said.
Andres Gongora, from the COAG farmers association, said Spanish farmers understood why French farmers were protesting and shared some of their demands.
“What we cannot understand is that they are focusing their protests on Spanish production when we are members of the European Union, just like them,” Gongora said. “The free movement of goods must be guaranteed.”
Protesters also blocked one of the main motorways linking Paris with the northern city of Lille and Belgium on Friday, causing lengthy traffic jams.
On a visit to the Haute-Garonne region on Friday, new French prime minister Gabriel Attal sought to assuage the anger of the farmers.
He told those present that his new government had decided to “put agriculture above everything else”.
Mr Attal said one of the measures he would implement would be to encourage French citizens to buy more homegrown products.