"The suffering has to stop": French farmers hold memorial ceremony, protests across France

Demonstrators held a silent gathering in the northern French town of Beauvais on Saturday, to pay tribute to a female farmer and her daughter who died when a car ran into a protest roadblock in the southwestern Ariege region earlier this week. The farmers also took a moment to remember colleagues who have died in recent years, with some dying by suicide due to the stress of their working conditions. "This suffering in the agricultural world has to stop at some point,” FNSEA Farmers' Union vice-president Luc Smessaert said. Meanwhile, farmers elsewhere in France maintained a series of nationwide protests, arguing government measures announced to quell the demonstrations did not go far enough to meet their demands for better pay and living conditions. On Friday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's government dropped plans to gradually reduce state subsidies on agricultural diesel, and announced other steps aimed at reducing the financial and administrative pressures faced by many farmers. The FNSEA, France's biggest farming union, said it would keep up its protests and many farmers remained at roadblocks set up by motorways and major roads on Saturday. Others stuck to their threat of setting up roadblocks around Paris. For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca Subscribe to Global News Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/20fcXDc Like Global News on Facebook HERE: http://bit.ly/255GMJQ Follow Global News on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1Toz8mt Follow Global News on Instagram HERE: https://bit.ly/2QZaZIB #GlobalNews #France #Farmers