• Following violent attacks by French farmers on trucks bringing
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Spanish fresh food into the South of France, the French government has offered police protection to all trucks carrying out similar work in the area, and has promised compensation for operators of damaged trucks.
The pledges were made after 400 Spanish lorries blocked the motorway on the French-Spanish Mediterranean border to protest at the destruction of 11 trucks — including one Irish lorry — by French farmers on 9 June when 100 farmers gathered at a truckstop at Roquemaure, some 801an north of Marseilles on the A9 motorway. They forced the drivers of six Spanish lorries and one West German vehicle out of their cabs, poured petrol on the tractive units and trailers and set them alight.
That evening, at the Lampourdier A9 tnickstop, four more trucks (from Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland and France) were also burnt by the farmers. A local tax office was subsequently wrecked.