2024-01-24 19:55:54
Traffic disrupted on the Channel. Farmers blocked the main access route to the port of Calais on Wednesday morning for trucks leaving for the United Kingdom carrying goods, we learned from the port and the FDSEA.
The demonstrators prevent access to the port ring road “for all freight but allow tourist vehicles to pass,” the port of Calais told AFP. According to the representative of the FDSEA in Calaisis, Antoine Peenaert, these blockages were to continue until 3 p.m.
The A16 motorway is also blocked at the level of access to the cross-Channel platforms without disrupting traffic in the Channel Tunnel at this stage, according to Eurotunnel.
“It’s a general feeling of fed up, we’ve been trying to tell our politicians for months, but there’s nothing moving, we’re fed up,” says Julien Duchateau among the demonstrators, farmer in Marquise (Pas-de-Calais). He also points out “the paperwork” which “infuriates everyone”.
“We have nothing left at all”
“We do our best to respect standards, respect the environment and we are getting more and more. We reduce our expenses so that we have something left to live on, but as all the prices have soared, we have nothing left at all,” says Romain Boulet, farmer.
Started this week in Occitanie with a motorway blockade which continues, the farmers’ movement has spread throughout France. Farmers and breeders share the same unease about their future, torn between the desire to produce and the need to reduce their impact on biodiversity and the climate, against a backdrop of very diverse demands: margins for mass distribution, fallow land, pesticides, environmental standards, authorizations administrative, price of diesel, etc.
This Wednesday, the mobilization increased with an increase in roadblocks to obtain answers from the government, which says it has “heard the call” and promises announcements “in the days to come”.
#Farmers #block #truck #access #port #Calais