(Bloomberg) -- French farmers said they will continue protests over falling incomes, higher costs and stringent European regulations after measures unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal failed to calm their anger.

Attal pledged a reversal of a plan to raise taxes on farming fuel, faster disbursement of emergency funds, and big fines for companies not respecting rules on price negotiations.

He also reiterated that France opposes a trade agreement between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur, saying the government would continue to fight the proposal, which farmers say would lead to unfair competition.

The measures don’t go far enough, according to labor organizations.

“We’ve decided to continue this mobilization — it’s a difficult but necessary decision because the prime minister’s announcements don’t answer all our questions,” Arnaud Rousseau, who leads the powerful FNSEA farmers union, told TF1 TV. “What was said this evening doesn’t calm the anger, it’s necessary to go further.”

The protests, which began a week ago in the south of France and mirror dissent in European countries including Germany and Poland, have spread as farmers block major roads and snarl traffic around the country with go-slow processions. Some unions had urged members to cut off the main highways into Paris, and it was unclear whether the capital would still be targeted.

The dispute is the first major test for Attal, who was appointed this month by President Emmanuel Macron to inject fresh impetus into a government torn by discord over immigration. His task is made harder by the fact farmers have overwhelming public backing, while far-right parties across Europe are latching onto the unrest ahead of European Parliament elections in June.

“We’ve decided to place agriculture above all else,” Attal said in a speech at a farm in Montastruc-de-Salies, in southwestern France, after meeting with agricultural workers. “Without our farmers, we aren’t France any longer, and we aren’t a country.”

Rousseau said some measures such as help with non-road fuel costs went in the right direction, but he said there were still questions over prices, imports from Ukraine and competition, among other issues, adding: “We want to discuss all the points again.”

Farmers also continued protests in neighboring Germany on Friday against bloated bureaucracy and plans to cut back subsidies, focusing on the Berlin offices of the three parties that form the country’s ruling coalition. Some 250 tractors caused traffic disruption in the German capital, according to media reports.

This follows road blockades across Germany earlier this month, which began as opposition to subsidy cuts but quickly won public support and turned into an outlet for anger against the government.

Many of the farmers’ complaints have focused on what they see as a tangle of ever-shifting regulations that have pushed many of them to the brink of bankruptcy. The European Union began a so-called strategic dialog Thursday to address growing divisions over agriculture across the bloc. But the effort is a slow-moving process, and it’s unclear how much the EU can do quickly to ease the protests.

While there has been little violence in France so far, the anger over living costs and fuel prices echoes the Yellow Vest protests that kicked off in 2018 and plagued Macron’s first term as president.

In 2019, he responded with tax cuts and support for low earners at an estimated cost of as much as €17 billion ($18.5 billion). But this time, he has less room for maneuver as his government struggles to tackle a vast debt burden built up during the Covid-19 pandemic and energy crisis.

The protests have huge public backing, despite spreading travel chaos. According to an Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey of 1,005 people for newspaper Le Figaro, 89% of French people support the movement.

The pressure on the government to act is also rising as far-right parties across Europe try to use the protests to bolster their campaigns for the European elections. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is already well ahead of Macron’s political grouping in opinion polls.

Responding on X, she said Attal’s announcements were short-term and respond “neither to the stakes nor to farmers’ expectations.”

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