French Farmers Are Blocking Roads Again and Macron Is Shaking Over What Comes Next

French farmers blockaded roads with tractors in 2024 and nearly brought Macron's government to its knees.

Now the tractors are rolling again – and this time the fuel prices breaking them are ones Macron's own green agenda created.

The farmers aren't going away until someone in Paris gives them an answer nobody there wants to give.

The EU Green Deal Already Doubled French Farmers' Fuel Costs

This didn't start Monday.

It started with Brussels.

The EU's green agenda has been strangling French farmers for years – demanding land sit idle, restricting the tools farmers use to grow food, burying them in regulatory paperwork – all while watching operating costs climb and sales prices flatline.

Then the Iran war hit.

Agricultural diesel – the fuel that runs every tractor, harvester, and transport truck on French farmland – jumped from 0.90 euros per litre to 1.70 euros per litre in a matter of months.

Bertrand Molinier, the Rhône branch leader of Rural Coordination, called it what it is: "That's a 70 per cent increase in four months."

He also laid out the second squeeze: "We have had an increase in costs, but sales prices are not keeping up."

The same EU that demands French farmers shrink their carbon footprint also just signed a free trade deal with South America's Mercosur bloc – meaning cheaper Brazilian and Argentine agricultural imports are flooding French shelves.

"On the shelf, the consumer has the choice between products which, for some, are two and a half times cheaper," Molinier said.

French farmers are paying far more to produce food that now competes with imports produced under none of the same standards.

Irish Farmers Just Won 592 Million Dollars Fighting the Same Fuel Crisis

Last month, Irish farmers blockaded their country's sole oil refinery in Cork, shut down fuel depots, and parked tractors on Dublin's main thoroughfare for six straight days.

More than a third of Ireland's gas pumps ran dry.

The government – panicked and cornered – wrote a €505 million check to make it stop.

French farmers watched every minute of it.

They also remember 2024, when they paralyzed French motorways, dumped manure at supermarkets and government buildings, and pushed convoys into Paris itself.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal reversed planned fuel tax increases and promised structural relief.

The movement stopped.

The relief never fully materialized.

Now Rural Coordination is back at a refinery, and CGT regional leader Pierre Monin is saying farmers have reached the "limit" of their ability to function and want "structural changes, not small measures."

That's not protest language.

That's a warning.

Jordan Bardella Is Already Waiting

French farmers have historically swung elections.

The 2024 protest wave accelerated support for National Rally heading into European Parliament elections – and politicians across the French government sprinted to offer concessions rather than watch the countryside defect entirely to the right.

It's happening again – only this time the stakes are higher.

France is heading into elections to replace outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, and National Rally president Jordan Bardella – polling at 35 to 36 percent in the first round – has been the loudest voice demanding real relief.

Bardella is calling for slashing VAT on fuel, eliminating the TICPE green tax, and restoring a "French price for electricity" indexed nationally rather than through Brussels.

"There is a 55 per cent tax on fuel," he told France 2. "And when we look around us today, in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Poland: all the major economies of the European Union are lowering taxes."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced targeted relief funds for specific sectors – the same playbook Dublin used to temporarily buy off farmers last month.

France's problem is it can't afford Dublin's answer.

France is running a budget deficit over 5 percent of GDP with public debt at 115.6 percent of GDP.

Paris can't write a $600 million check.

So the farmers stay angry, Bardella keeps rising, and the tractors stay fueled up – waiting for the moment the government stops pretending structural problems have tactical solutions.

Twenty tractors showed up at a refinery Monday morning.

Next time it won't be twenty.

Sources:

• Kurt Zindulka, "First Farmer Protests Against Fuel Prices Break Out in France," Breitbart, May 12, 2026.
• "Euro Energy Crisis: Over 8 in 10 Want French Government to Cut Fuel Taxes," Breitbart, April 24, 2026.
• "Irish PM Offers $592 Million Fuel Tax Cut to Reopen Refinery," Fortune, April 13, 2026.
• "2026 Irish Fuel Protests," Wikipedia, updated May 2026.
• "2020s French Farmers' Protests," Wikipedia, updated May 2026.