European farmers block French roads and head to Brussels to protest wages and bureaucratic meddling

abcnews.go.com:

Farmers in France have staged protests across the country and in Brussels against low wages and what they consider to be excessive regulation, mounting costs and other problems

BRUSSELS — A surge in agricultural protests from the streets of Berlin to the flanks of the Pyrenees reached the European Union's headquarters on Wednesday where farmers decried everything from petty bureaucratic meddling to the scourge of bankruptcy and worse.

With the political visibility of farming and food going to the heart and origins of the EU, the volatile sector could turn into a burning issue before the June 6-9 European Parliament election, pitting traditional political groups on the defensive against populist and far-right parties sensing an opportunity.

“My words for today are: we are fed up,” said Benoit Laqueue, who had traveled from his farm in northern France to angrily point at the buildings of the European Parliament, which helps set up EU farm rules and payments that have farmers up in arms.

“The problem are the technocrats,” he said. “We have the farmers' common sense.”

It's a refrain heard across the 27-nation bloc, as farmers have to adapt to anything from climate change and environmental pollution rules to free trade agreements with global farming companies that they feel are negotiated over their heads.

Beyond Brussels and France on Wednesday, there were also demonstrations in Poland, where disgruntled farmers slow-drove their tractors through major cities in protest at what they call “unfair” competition from neighboring Ukraine, which has been granted special wartime export regulations.

In a sign that the protest movement was expanding in France, roadblocks were spreading in many regions, coming a day after a farmer