PARIS (Sputnik) – Thousands of French farmers will drive tractors into Paris on Thursday, protesting declining food prices and demanding assistance from the government, the National Federation of Agricultural Holders’ Unions (FNSEA) said.
"Tomorrow, 1,500 tractors and several thousand farmers will be in Paris and will need the support of Parisians," FNSEA wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
In earlier Tweets, FNSEA said that French farmers are demanding "fair prices" and "structural reforms" needed to "save" the French agricultural industry.
Protesters have barricaded roads and highways in previous actions.
French authorities have admitted that Russia’s year-long food embargo on EU-produced food, which was introduced as a response to Western anti-Russia sanctions, has had a negative impact on the French food market.
The French government estimates that roughly 10 percent of livestock farmers in the country are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Moscow has recently prolonged its food import ban, originally introduced in August 2014. The move came in response to the extension of EU economic sanctions imposed on Russia over Moscow’s alleged involvement in Ukraine’s internal conflict, a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied.
An emergency EU farming summit is scheduled for September 7.
