It looks like France is in meltdown

[Alex]

French police have started to arrest farmers and confiscate their tractors.

[JBR]

French police have started to arrest farmers and confiscate their tractors.

I think that might turn out to be a numbers game.
Are there more police than farmers, or vice versa?
Then there might be other disgruntled people joining in to swell the numbers.

[klondike]

The French have a lot of very well equipped police. They also have a lot of very militant Frenchmen. This seems to be as much an argument with the EU as the French government and repeated in other EU countries.

I would say it's time for popcorn were it not certain that in some roundabout way this will probably put our food prices up. That only take a butterfly farting in Brazil to achieve or so it seems.

[ansu]

Quite interesting for me, but as you know my views on some points differ from yours. 
As to the French - they have a different mentality and agriculture plays an important role (lots of farms). The problem is that it's very difficult to find a solution taking into account the interests of the farmers and the requirements necessary to protect the environment. Species extinction is increasing, partly due to the use of pesticides, but on the other side we need bees etc. to pollinate the plants, secure that the birds have enough food etc. 
In Germany we mainly have small or middle-sized farms - at least in our region - and transforming their farms into "biological" farms as we call them is expensive and often they don't have the funds required. So when our government introduced the new regulations and reductions of the subsidies, the "barrel has overflowed" or how you say. 
As you all know we have a lot of people on strike in Germany at the moment - one of the reasons is that prices have increased considerably and we have a lack of workers, i.e. no one must be afraid of losing his job when striking. 
Probably the situation in the UK is different.

[JBR]

Quite interesting for me, but as you know my views on some points differ from yours.
As to the French - they have a different mentality and agriculture plays an important role (lots of farms). The problem is that it's very difficult to find a solution taking into account the interests of the farmers and the requirements necessary to protect the environment. Species extinction is increasing, partly due to the use of pesticides, but on the other side we need bees etc. to pollinate the plants, secure that the birds have enough food etc.
In Germany we mainly have small or middle-sized farms - at least in our region - and transforming their farms into "biological" farms as we call them is expensive and often they don't have the funds required. So when our government introduced the new regulations and reductions of the subsidies, the "barrel has overflowed" or how you say.
As you all know we have a lot of people on strike in Germany at the moment - one of the reasons is that prices have increased considerably and we have a lack of workers, i.e. no one must be afraid of losing his job when striking.
Probably the situation in the UK is different.

Very similar in the UK.

Personally, I think that this 'eco' and 'nett zero' nonsense will eventually die a death when they begin to realise that everything they are doing achieves nothing but inconvenience and expense to us, and yet at the same time is actually achieving nothing.

Unfortunately, I am equally confident that the Europeans will see sense long before our lot do!

[klondike]

It does achieve something. It terrifies a portion of the population and allows energy prices  to be ramped up transferring money from the poor to the rich who also make a fortune from green products. One side effect will be it will kill off personal transport and put us all under tighter control.

If you mean doesn't have any effect on climate change of course it doesn't. What we do in this country doesn't even reduce our CO2 production which they blame. It simply exports it elsewhere.

[muddy]

Last year we drove the length of France and through huge areas of arable farmland .
We hardly saw a single person just the occasional tractor driver in some vast acreage .
Many of the French are industrial scale farmers who rake in huge amounts in subsidies
That whey they can afford their massive air conditioned tractors .
I suspect that most of the protesters are these farmers ,as the poorer ones that breed sheep or cows can't afford to leave their livestock for a sit in outside Paris .
But now with all these rules about net zero and other green issues they are feeling hard done by
Our own farmers are similar
Where I live  ( Wiltshire ) you will never see a poor one .
They roll around in the latest defenders and their monster tractors destroy the country roads ,
They benefit from cheap fuel to inheritance tax breaks and have enjoyed subsidies for decades .I am not saying there are not some poor hill farmers out in wales who may be struggling but it's a fact that it's cheaper to buy a leg of lamb from New Zealand than from  your  local farm shop despite the fact that here in Wiltshire there are hundreds of sheep l

[Diasi]

It does achieve something. It terrifies a portion of the population and allows energy prices  to be ramped up transferring money from the poor to the rich who also make a fortune from green products. One side effect will be it will kill off personal transport and put us all under tighter control.

If you mean doesn't have any effect on climate change of course it doesn't. What we do in this country doesn't even reduce our CO2 production which they blame. It simply exports it elsewhere.

It relies on a sufficient number of the UK population being gullible & unfortunately there seems to be more gullible people than non-gullible people.

[Scrumpy]

Farmers always have something to moan about... Yet I notice, over the last few years, many ( celebrities) having taken to farming.. So I guess there must be a few bob to be made..

[JBR]

And while our greenies and those in other European countries still insist that we stop using machines and other such things which benefit our economy, the Chinese are laughing at us and making themselves stronger and richer.

I sometimes think that we deserve to be taken-over by the expanding muslim empire.

[muddy]

Which is unfortunate because many Muslim countries unless they have oil are inevitably  poor failed states .

[ansu]

"Yet I notice, over the last few years, many ( celebrities) having taken to farming."
My mother always said that "buying land is a secure investment". In case of need you can grow vegetables and become autarc. 
As to the Chinese - the Chinese living in the countryside normally isn't rich and according to a documentary on German TV organic vegetables are grown in a dubious environment. At least here in Germany organic farmers (Biobauern) have to meet with a lot of regulations and requirements. 
You are right, farmers in third world countries aren't rich and successful at all, but you mustn't forget much still has been done to improve the infrastructure there. However, what's astonishing people seem to be moaning less.
As I told you, I travelled a lot during the last few years, I just wanted to see how other people are living.