Looks as if tensions are building following the accident at a blockade in Ariège yesterday, so the rest of week could be difficult for travel. News in our region is that A7 totally blocked round Valence.
Are you changing travel plans? I have to got to a hospital appt in Lyon tomorrow so hoping travel won’t take too long.
(Not sure how I feel about the accident, as really not clear what happened and likely to be blown up hugely.
Yes sorry for the farmer that died, but if they had blocked the road and their blockade was not well lit or well positioned so driver just didn’t see it in time in the dark is it really all their fault? )
She’s dead her daughter is dead and her husband is seriously injured. No idea how the driver may be but you don’t cause that amount of damage if you are driving like a reasonable person.
Centre of Agen completely blocked this morning - the big McDo roundabout, nothing moving at all in any direction. After 20 minutes I turned round - gendarmes everywhere. Tried another route, same problem, U-turned immediately this time and headed up to Foulayronnes and zigzagged down through back streets. I needed to get to the St Hilaire hospital and it’s an hour’s journey so was determined to get through somehow. Managed ok. They’d cleared by after lunch. The young man in the cafe where I stopped said this is planned for 3 days.
Reports say it was on a motorway, but it’s free to the south from just north of Pamiers, so no péage there. The road was apparently closed, or at least marked as closed. The occupants were not French, and I suppose it’s possible they didn’t understand that the road was closed. The Prosecutor has stated that it didn’t appear to be a deliberate act. All in all, it’s a tragedy.
Edit : It seems, from the SudOuest article that the driver knew the road was closed, and deliberately unblocked the road. Idiots.
Having read more it doesn’t sound that they were being reasonable…and have just inflamed everything massively. More pressure from RN on immigration coming I imagine.
I saw them attacking foreign foodstuffs coming in on lorries on TF1 20h last night. The A9 was blocked down here but think its been lifted now.Certainly not going to try and going shopping over the border at the moment to find out.
Have had to turn back as all roads blocked so can’t get to hospital appt in Lyon. Grŕrrr. The next appointment they have free is in mid-April. So another 3 months with painful foot is not going to make me support farmers.
I think it was the safe speed which allowed this latest accident to end up with only light injuries to the passengers and an uninjured driver… no-one else was involved.
Other factions getting involved now and blockading some petrol depots so think we are in for a few weeks of difficulty as more and more join in and make it a worthy cause and of course the panic buyers will be out in force then! Certainly busy in SU earlier but no big trolleys piled high.
They have always done so, inflicting as much damage as possible hence all the slurry being sprayed on banks and prefectures and the doors to the big supermarkets as well I saw on new at 13h. Where I lived previously, the high bridge over the nearby town was always a target to be blocked and each time afterwards shut so inspections by engineers could be made to test the structure and make sure it was not damaged by the heat of the rubber burning.
One of the things they are cross about is the ban on pesticides so I really don’t think a bit of tyre-burning will be seen as the disgusting ecocidal vandalism it is.
For instance seen tyre burning on roads quite often by protest groups of various types over the years not just farmers. More than once at the same roundabout just before the only main bridge into Rouen from the North, workers protests blocking traffic with tyres burning etc.
And turning over cars and sometimes burning them seems to be a particular tradition on New Year’s Eve.
So not just farmers.
Unfortunately bl00dy Monsanto did manage to get genetically-damaging RoundUp approved again.
Came through a demo this afternoon on the biggest roundabout in Rodez. We’d just driven up from Aigues Mortes and eventually survived mis-direction by an out of date sat nav in Montpellier (God I hate driving across that city - Jo’burg and Cape Town are far more dangerous, but at least the route is usually straightforward).
So we have farmers blocking a roundabout with their c.€50,000+ tractors whilst ordinary wage slaves in little old Peugeot’s are trying to make their home after a crappy 9 to 5. Sorry, but these people aren’t the right target - surely it’s supermarkets driving down the price paid to farmers.
I also think there’s an interesting dichotomy between many immigrants’ previous perception of farmyard chicken as something for special occasions and the cheap availability in France of industrial chicken.
Something similar happened a century ago in the US when Immigrant Italians got sudden access to cheap beef which is the origin of the ‘Italian’ meatball. Sadly I know of nothing so similarly desirable emerging from the present situation
I think you’ll find an enormous amount of support for the farmers. And why do you think they need a 50k tractor? (Actually the average price is more like 200k but anyway)
Perhaps they should be planting manglewurzels by hand?
no-one else was involved.