Perhaps the only tractor in France that isn't currently blocking a major highway or autoroute. One of the startling things about France is how quickly protest escalates to extremes of disruption, damage or even violence. Last week a farmer near Toulouse decided he was sick of getting up early and working 60 hours a week for a pittance. So he parked his tractor on a local road, locked himself in the cab and started posting to social media. Within days all the farmers were at it, blocking all the autoroutes into the major cities, even trying to blockade the major food distribution centre for Paris. I was going to drive to Spain today to do some shopping. Most things are cheaper there, including food. But the autoroute is blocked at the frontier and I guess the mountain roads will have too much traffic, so I will just have to wait till things calm down. They always do, but things never change.
I made my first visit to France over forty years ago in 1985, driving a Triumph TR6 down the West coast from St.Malo, with the intention of crossing into Spain to visit Saint Sebastian. We never made it, the frontier was blockaded, that time by Spanish truck drivers. They were objecting to having their trucks shot at by French tomato growers, who were blaming their own economic problems on cheap imports from Spain.
The poor Spanish, having the misfortune to be neighbors to such a militant country. They get blamed for a lot of things, but not always. Sometimes the farmers blame the supermarkets for offering low prices, so they react by dumping excess and often rotten produce in supermarket entrances. If it's not the fault of the supermarkets or the Spanish, then the French government gets the blame, and then the rotten produce is dumped in the entrance to tax offices. This happened here a few years ago, though it was the fishermen who were protesting, and it was rotten fish that they dumped. Of course the tax collectors all immediately went on strike because of the safety hazard getting to work!
Pretty cool to pop to spain for your shopping! What fun 🤩