The second occasion was on 13th January, when French farmers brought their tractors to Paris one week after another to protest against an EU-Mercosur trade agreement that they claim endangers their local agriculture through unfair competition with low-priced South American imports.

Farmers in France, the largest agricultural producer in the European Union, and other member states have been protesting for months over the EU- Mercosur agreement and scores of local complaints.

The Tuesday demonstration was a structure of the FNSEA, which is among the largest unions of farmers in France. Another farmers’ union, the Coordination Rurale, had already taken tractors down the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe last Thursday in a surprise operation.

The police in Paris estimated that there were about 350 tractors present on Tuesday, the day of the demonstration. One column of tractors had been reunited by the Arc de Triomphe, and another by the French parliament building.

“Even with the European Parliament yet to give its opinion, the Mercosur agreement was endorsed. It will result in the importation of foreign products that we can manufacture perfectly well in France and do not comply with standards that are imposed on French agriculture,” said the vice ‌ president of the FNSEA and Paris area farmer Damien Greffin.

Greffin added that they also intended to hold the demonstration at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on January 20 in addition to the protest in front of the French parliament.

The fact that the Mercosur deal was passed by the majority of the EU states on Friday, although France voted against, has increased pressure on the government from the farmers and the opposition parties, with some even putting no-confidence motions.

“Farming is passing through a crisis never seen before, and we must be heard,” said Guilllaume Lefort, a crop farmer in Seine et Marne in the Paris region, and he stood before the Assemblée Nationale building with an FNSEA flag.