French farmers target food imports as Mercosur protests continue

PARIS, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Farmers stopped lorries at France’s largest container port and on the main motorway north of Paris on Monday, conducting symbolic checks on imported food in protest at an EU-Mercosur trade deal they say will lead to unfair competition.

Farmers in France, the European Union’s largest agricultural producer, have been protesting for weeks over grievances including the proposed trade pact with South America’s Mercosur bloc. 

The deal’s approval by most EU states on Friday, despite France’s rejection, has intensified pressure on the government from farmers and opposition parties, some of which have filed no-confidence motions.   

At the northern port of Le Havre, several dozen members of the Young Farmers union who had gathered with tractors over the weekend were inspecting food lorries coming out of the port.

FARMERS DENOUNCE ‘UNFAIR COMPETITION’

“It’s above all to raise the alarm again and keep up the pressure over the Mercosur agreement,” said Justin Lemaitre, secretary general of a local branch of the union.

“It’s hard to swallow such unfair competition with products that we produce in Europe being imported from the other side of the world,” he said, adding that protesters at Le Havre had observed mushrooms and sheep offal from China.

At a toll gate on the A1 motorway near the northern city of Lille, farmers from the Coordination Rurale union were carrying out similar checks on lorries heading towards Paris, Patrick Legras, a spokesperson for the union, said.

Farmers were also blocking fuel depots at the Atlantic port of La Rochelle and in the Savoie region of the French Alps, as well as a cereal port in Bayonne in the southwest, unions and French media reported.

Farmers plan to bring tractors into the capital for a protest on Tuesday, following a surprise demonstration there last Thursday and ahead of a proposed gathering in Strasbourg on January 20 at the European Parliament. French farmers hope the parliament will block the Mercosur pact.

(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; editing by Barbara Lewis)