It looked like a military campaign. The farmers called it \u201cOperation Paris Siege,\u201d while the French interior minister ordered an \u201cimportant defensive system\u201d to protect the capital and its airports.<\/p>\n
On Monday, angry agriculturalists and their allies deployed their tractors in an attempt to surround Paris, choking major roadways and disrupting not only traffic and trade, but also politics and normal life.<\/p>\n
Farmers are emerging as the protest movement of the moment. In multiple countries across Europe, they have been driving their combines and harvesters into the streets to oppose cuts to subsidies and new regulations, some of them designed to reduce climate-changing emissions.<\/p>\n
France, of course, is deeply familiar with protests. But as Paris prepares to host the Olympics this summer, and as the country\u2019s ruling political centrists gird for a challenge from the far right in European Parliament elections, the farmer protests have the potential to be particularly destabilizing.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n French farmers deployed their tractors to choke major highways, disrupting not only trade and traffic, but also politics and normal life, to protest subsidy cuts and new regulations. https:\/\/t.co\/I0TVeKa6aq<\/a><\/p>\n — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n