Nearly 100 French farmers have been arrested in Paris after they forced their way into Europe’s biggest food market, as tractor protests continue to spread.
French police arrested 91 protesters who entered the sprawling site at Rungis, south of the French capital on Wednesday amid days of growing discontent.
Armoured vehicles were also forced to block entrances to the market.
Farmers have also descended on Brussels to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help them with taxes, rising costs and cheap imports, throwing eggs at the European Parliament, starting fires near the building and setting off fireworks.
Major thoroughfares in Brussels, the heart of the European Union, were blocked by around 1,000 tractors, according to a police estimate.
One tractor displayed a banner saying "If you love the earth, support those who manage it" as farmers from Belgium and other European countries try to make themselves heard by EU leaders meeting later.
Security personnel in riot gear stood guard behind barriers where the leaders were due to meet, a few blocks away from the European Parliament building where tractors were parked in a central square.
Farmers say they are not being paid enough, are choked by taxes and green rules and face unfair competition from abroad.
They have already secured several measures, including the bloc's executive Commission proposals to limit farm imports from Ukraine and loosen some environmental regulations on fallow lands.
In France, where farmers have been protesting for weeks, the government has dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised more aid.
But farmers say that is not enough, and protests have spread to countries including Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
The protests had an immediate impact on Wednesday as the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, announced plans to shield farmers from cheap exports from Ukraine during wartime and to allow farmers to use some land that had been forced to lie fallow for environmental reasons.
The plans still need to be approved by the bloc's 27 member states and the European Parliament, but they amounted to a sudden and symbolic concession.
"I just would like to reassure them that we do our utmost to listen to their concerns. I think we are addressing two very important (concerns) of them right now," European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said.
