French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is visiting the Haute-Garonne this evening where he's announced new measures aimed at addressing the concerns of protesting farmers. He announced what he called "ten immediate simplification measures", adding that the government has decided "to put agriculture above everything". He said that the government wished to introduce measures to encourage French people to buy French products.
Protests by farmers have once again been taking place across France today. Locally, a large amount of manure was dumped in front of the Prefecture in Nice this morning as about 200 protestors gathered in front of the building. A procession of tractors travelled from the MIN market to the prefecture. Further afield, the A57, the A54 and the A51 autoroutes were once again partially blocked by farm vehicles. The Aude prefecture said early this afternoon that about twenty agricultural vehicles headed towards the centre of Narbonne where they caused damage, dumped their loads and lit a fire in front of the sub-prefecture. A fire was also started at a farmers mutualite organization in the same area. Around 1,500 demonstrators, 150 agricultural machines and 30 vehicles were blocking the Croix Sud interchange at Narbonne on the A9. Vinci Autoroutes said that a total of 400km were closed on the A7 and A9, a situation they said they said hadn't been seen before. A farmer suffered slight injuries when he was a truck tried to force its way through the blockade on the A7 in the Vaucluse department. The driver was arrested. This afternoon farmers have also been blockading motorways near Paris
