French Farmers March to Demand Help on Meat Prices
Thousands of angry farmers demanding higher meat prices and government aid to offset drought losses marched through the hometown of France’s finance minister Thursday.
The demonstrators, estimated by organizers to number 15,000, marched peacefully in a two-mile long procession. But clashes broke out when they confronted police blocking the way to the town center. Officials said 10 police were hurt.
The protesters, who came from all over the country to this town some 150 miles south of Paris, threw rocks, bottles and powerful firecrackers. Riot police fired tear gas to stop about 20 farmers trying to storm a government building.
In Chateaureaux, also in central France, police sprayed tear gas and water to disperse more than 1,200 farmers who set fire to bales of hay and hurled eggs, tomatoes, firecrackers and stones at the officers.
Finance Minister Pierre Beregovoy, the mayor of Nevers, has come under fire from farmers for withholding aid to livestock producers suffering from plunging prices and drought.
They dismissed as inadequate a government aid package of $225 million (1.2 billion francs) announced two weeks ago.
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