LIVE: French farmers “besiege“ Paris in major protest

French farmers were getting closer to the French capital on Monday (January 29) as they blocked a highway in protest against price pressures, taxes and green regulation. Dozens of tractors occupied a motorway near the city of Beauvais, leading to the capital, as farmers said that they were escalating their movement and that they were unhappy with the response by the French government. France said it would push to ease European Union environmental regulations on fallow farmland this week, as tractors blocked major highways out of Paris on Monday and nationwide farmers’ protests intensified. The government on Friday (January 26) dropped plans to gradually reduce state subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised an easing of environmental regulations, but farmers’ organisations said that was not enough and pledged to step up the pressure. Read the best of our journalism: Subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times YouTube channel: Find us on Facebook: Find us on Twitter: Find us on Instagram: #france #agriculture #protest #livestream,