France’s protests follow similar action in other European countries, including Germany and Poland, ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seen making gains.

“We’re here because we’re unhappy with agricultural policies,” Pascal Desprez, a 65-year-old grain farmer who has been working in agriculture for 42 years, said on the A10 highway near Paris.

Farmers, he said, want President Emmanuel Macron to step in – including to loosen regulations.

“We’re calling on Macron to put in place more realistic norms,” he added.

The government, wary of seeing the protests escalate and with an eye on European elections, has already dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental regulations.

France also said it would push its European Union peers to agree to ease regulations on fallow farmland.

But farmers’ organizations said that was not enough.

“Our objective is to put pressure on the government, so that we can quickly find a solution for a way out of the crisis,” Arnaud Rousseau, head of the powerful farmers’ union FNSEA, said on RTL radio.

The FNSEA said farmers had set up eight roadblocks in the wider Paris region.

In Longvilliers, southwest of Paris, Reuters footage showed tractors, some with trailers, blocking the A10 highway in both directions, with traffic diverted to smaller roads.

Many farmers had attached flags and banners to their tractors. One tractor was carrying a sign that read “Angry farmer”, another read: “Farmer: when I was young I dreamed of it and today I’m dying of it.”

EU talks

Speaking at a blockade near Beauvais north of Paris, Regis Desrumaux, head of the FDSEA union in the Oise region, said the farmers’ concerns are broad and include cheap imports, fallow land and red tape.

Macron will make a push for more pro-farming policies at a summit of EU leaders on Thursday, Farming Minister Marc Fesneau said.

Farmers must meet certain conditions to receive EU subsidies – including a requirement to devote four per cent of farmland to “non-productive” areas where nature can recover. That can be done by leaving land lying fallow.

Two EU officials told Reuters the EU’s executive Commission was looking into changing the fallow land rule, as requested by France, among other options to respond to the farmers’ concerns.

The Commission had already temporarily exempted farmers from the rule in response to the Ukraine war and food security concerns.

Unhappy Belgian farmers also blocked highways in southern Belgium and parked tractors near to the EU Parliament in Brussels. Some 30-40 tractors were parked up on the E19 road just south of the Belgian capital on Monday morning, many farmers having spent the night sleeping in their cabs.

–Reporting for Reuters by Noemie Olive, Marco Trujillo, Sarah Meyssonnier, Gus Trompiz, Tassilo Hummel, Geert de Clercq, Sybille de la Hamaide and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Sudip Kar-Gupta and Kate Abnett in Brussels.

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The cows were kept in what an animal rights activist called “hellish” conditions on the Karim Allah, which docked in the southeastern Spanish port of Cartagena on Thursday after struggling to find a buyer for the cattle during the past two months.

The beasts were rejected by several countries over fears they had bovine bluetongue virus. The insect-borne virus causes lameness and haemorrhaging among cattle. Bluetongue does not affect humans.

The veterinarians’ report concluded that the animals had suffered from the lengthy journey. Some of them were unwell and not fit for transport outside of the European Union, nor should they be allowed in the EU. Euthanasia would be the best solution for their health and welfare, it said.

The report did not say if the cattle had bluetongue disease.

“It is not even mentioned, which is very surprising,” said Miquel Masramon, a lawyer representing the ship owner Talia Shipping Line. The ship is registered in Lebanon, according to VesselFinder.

“My impression is that they will definitely go ahead with the slaughter and destruction of the animals and it’ll be difficult for us to prevent it,” he said.

Masramon said he would push for the return of blood samples taken from the animals and impounded by authorities on Thursday to be released and tested “to prove if there is any bluetongue.”

The agriculture ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It said earlier on Friday that it would make appropriate decisions after analyzing information from the inspection.

The vessel originally left Cartagena to deliver the cattle to Turkey. But authorities there blocked the shipment and suspended live animal imports from Spain, fearing bluetongue infection.

That rejection turned the ship into an international pariah. Several countries refused it entry even to replenish animal feed, forcing the cows to go several days with just water.

The cows likely have severe health problems after their “hellish” crossing, said animal rights activist Silvia Barquero, director of the Igualdad Animal NGO.

“What has happened to the waste produced by all these animals for two months? We are sure they are in unacceptable sanitary conditions,” Barquero told Reuters.

The agriculture ministry’s experts counted 864 animals alive on board. Twenty-two cows died at sea, with two corpses still aboard. The remains of the others that died were chopped up and thrown overboard during the journey, the report said.

Ownership of the cattle is unclear. The exporter, World Trade, said it is not responsible because it sold the animals, Masramon said. Reuters has been unable to reach World Trade for comment.

A second ship, the ElBeik, also set sail from Spain in December with a cargo of nearly 1,800 cows. It is currently moored off the Turkish Cypriot port of Famagusta.

— Reporting for Reuters by Emma Pinedo and Nathan Allen in Madrid, and Juan Medina and Marco Trujillo in Cartagena; additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; writing by Nathan Allen and Jessica Jones.

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