French farmers spray manure, block roads over cow ‘mass slaughter’ policy
Farmers in southern France are incensed by the government’s mandatory slaughter of herds to contain ‘lumpy skin disease’
Farmers sprayed manure on government offices and kept up roadblocks in southern France on Sunday in protest against a mass cull of cows as officials urged Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to urgently intervene.
Many farmers in southern and southwest France have been incensed by the use of police force and the government’s mass slaughter policy to contain the spread of nodular dermatitis, widely known as lumpy skin disease.
Farmers have blocked roads after veterinarians on Friday slaughtered a herd of more than 200 cows in a village near the Spanish border after discovering a single case of the disease. Police had used tear gas to clear away angry demonstrators protecting the cattle.
“New blockades are under way,” Bertrand Venteau, head of hardline farmers’ union Coordination Rurale, said. “It’s continuing and spreading.”
While the leading FNSEA farming union supports the government’s strategy, Coordination Rurale and another union have called for protests, demanding a widespread vaccination campaign instead.