Madrid | Reuters — French farmers blocked a main road linking France and Spain with a demonstration at the border on Friday as part of nationwide protests over low food prices and excessive bureaucracy.
Spain’s national federation of transport associations said some Spanish trucks had been subjected to attacks at the border, and the Spanish agriculture minister condemned such acts.
French farmers have been protesting to urge the government to do more to help them. The protests are now affecting traffic trying to cross into France from Spain on the AP-7 highway that runs along the Mediterranean coast from southern Spain to the frontier. About 20,000 Spanish trucks cross into France daily.
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Catalonia’s traffic service, Transit, said on X that northbound lanes of the AP-7 were blocked at the border municipality of La Jonquera, and shared online video footage showing long lines of trucks.
Fenadismer, Spain’s federation of transport associations, released footage of what it said was a Spanish truck driver being forced to empty 20,000 litres of wine from its tank, and accused French protesters of vandalism and destroying goods.
“Fair demands that involve intolerable acts lose all legitimacy,” it wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Agriculture Minister Luis Planas told reporters on Thursday attacks on trucks were “absolutely unacceptable”.
“We fully respect the right to demonstrate and the right to freely express one’s opinion but always with respect and peacefully, not with violent means and coercion,” he said.
Andres Gongora, from the COAG farmers association, said Spanish farmers understood why French farmers were protesting and shared some of their demands.
“What we cannot understand is that they are focusing their protests on Spanish production when we are members of the European Union, just like them,” Gongora said. “The free movement of goods must be guaranteed.”
–Reporting for Reuters by Emma Pinedo and Catarina Demony in Madrid and Vincent West in Bayonne. Additional reporting by Inti Landauro.
