Thousands of farmers in France's southwest blocked roads and set hay on fire Saturday to protest the culling of cows due to a skin disease, as the government announced that 1 million cattle would be vaccinated.
French farmers have been angry over what they see as the government's heavy-handed response to an outbreak of nodular dermatitis, widely known as lumpy skin disease.
On Friday, veterinarians slaughtered a herd of more than 200 cows in the village of Les Bordes-sur-Arize near the Spanish border after discovering a single case of the sickness. Police had to disperse angry farmers as they were escorted in a team to carry out the culling.
Several unions have said that slaughtering whole herds is ineffective, calling for blockades across France "to put an end to this madness."
On Saturday, dozens of tractors blocked traffic, while others parked in front of public buildings, as farmers set fire to bales of straw and tyres.
Nearly 150 kilometers (90 miles) of the A64 motorway between Bayonne and Tarbes were closed to traffic due to blockades that began late Friday.
Authorities recorded 43 demonstrations or incidents nationwide, bringing together 2,000 protesters, some of which turned violent.
Lumpy skin disease, which cannot be passed to humans but can be fatal for cattle, first appeared in France in June.
The official strategy to stamp out what the authorities describe as a very contagious disease has been to slaughter all animals in affected herds and carry out "emergency vaccination" of all cattle within a 50-kilometer radius.
"It's the extermination of cows and farmers," said Leon Thierry of hard-line farmers' union Coordination Rurale (CR), who protested in the town of Briscous with more than a dozen farmers and around 40 tractors.
"It is out of the question that in the Pyrenees we should slaughter animals that are not sick, that are healthy, because they belong to a herd from which, supposedly, a sick animal has emerged," he said.
Approximately 100 farmers gathered in Carbonne, about 40 kilometers southwest of Toulouse, setting up camp on the A64 highway.
"They deploy riot police to kill 200 cows, but you don't see them at the drug-dealing spots!" said Benjamin Kalanquin, 24, who works not far from the farm where the entire herd was slaughtered.
"Total slaughter is not the solution," he said, vowing to camp on the motorway until Christmas if there is no convincing response."
"People are fed up," added Benjamin Roquebert, 37.
"You can't build up a herd in five minutes," added the cattle breeder and grain producer. "It's a lifetime of work, spanning several generations."
The protesters also say the government is not doing enough to protect them.
The European Union is expected to sign a trade deal with South America next week, which farmers say will flood the market with cheap agricultural products that will outcompete them.
"We're struggling, we can't eat, we can't even make 1,000 euros a month," said another protester, Aurelien Marti.
Around 70 farmers sounded their horns and set off firecrackers and smoke bombs in front of the agriculture minister's former parliamentary office in the eastern town of Pontarlier. They hung a dead calf from a tree with a sign saying "Our Animals, Our Life."
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said on Saturday the government planned to vaccinate 1 million head of cattle in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions.
"In the coming weeks, we will vaccinate nearly 1 million animals, thereby protecting farmers," she told Ici Occitanie radio.
Those vaccinations would be in addition to the million head of cattle already vaccinated since July, the agriculture ministry told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The culls have divided farmers' unions.
Coordination Rurale and Confederation Paysanne are united against the widespread cullings and have called for a vaccination campaign.
The leading FNSEA farming union supports the total culling of affected herds.
