Dozens of tractors managed since early Thursday to break the police cordon and position themselves in sites such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees, defying the ban issued by the Paris Prefecture.

Protests have also taken place in other cities, such as southern Bordeaux, against the agreement, which the European Commission hopes to sign “very soon” with MERCOSUR, an economic bloc comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

Pressed by farmers, the French government currently represents the leading and almost only obstacle to the implementation of the initiative, conditioning its support on the inclusion of reciprocal measures, safeguard clauses, and customs controls, to protect European agriculture from alleged unfair competition.

The Rural Coordination (RC), one of France’s agricultural unions, is leading the mobilization of dozens of tractors in Paris this Thursday, where many of these vehicles were stranded on the outskirts, unable to enter the city.

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