France’s government prepares new measures to calm farmers’ protests, with barricades squeezing Paris

PARIS (AP) — France’s government is preparing more concessions to calm the anger of protesting farmers camped out around Paris. Attention is focusing on an address that new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is to give on Tuesday afternoon to France’s lower house of parliament, laying out his government’s priorities. The farmers’ campaign for better pay, fewer constraints and lower costs has blown up into a major crisis for Attal in the first month of his new job. Protesters rejected pro-agriculture measures that Attal announced last week as insufficient. The government promised more responses for Tuesday. Protesting farmers encircled Paris with traffic-snarling barricades on Monday, using hundreds of tractors and hay bales to block highways leading to the capital.