ROME (AFP) – A convoy of tractors was poised on Saturday to descend on Rome as farmers’ protests caused disruptions across Europe, though they wound down in France following government concessions.
Farmers have expressed anger at what they say are excessively restrictive regulations on agriculture and unfair competition, among other grievances.
The movement erupted in France last month and there have also been protests in Germany, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Greece and the Netherlands.
Farmers have blocked motorways and disrupted traffic in key cities with convoys of tractors.
In Italy on Saturday, around 150 tractors massed in Orte, about an hour north of Rome.
Protesters there called for better pay and conditions and announced their imminent arrival in the Italian capital, an AFP reporter saw.
“Italian agriculture has woken up,” said protester Felice Antonio Monfeli.
“It’s historic and the people here are proving it. For the first time in their history, farmers are united under the same flag, that of Italy.”
The demonstrators have for days been calling for talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, without having had a response so far.
In Greece, around 2,000 farmers protested in the country’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki on Saturday calling for increases in aid.
Their action came a day after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced further support measures.
Some farmers from the mountain villages of Thessaly threw chestnuts and apples that had spoiled because of the natural disasters that hit the region.
