Why French farmers have the support of the Church in their protest movement

The tractors have lifted their blockades of Paris and other major French cities, and the farmers have made their way home. 

Their two-week nationwide protest movement was suspended on Friday, 2 February, after Emmanuel Macron’s government announced a series of measures – financial and administrative – to alleviate the suffering, the anger and the despair of the country’s agricultural sector.

One of the most memorable images of the farmers’ protest was of a priest blessing each tractor in a large convoy as it passed through his village. Many other figures in the Catholic church demonstrated their solidarity with the farmers.