'We're escalating': Farmers aim to block roads to Paris

STORY: Dozens of tractors occupied a motorway near the city of Beauvais, leading to the capital, as farmers said that they were escalating their movement and unhappy with the response of the French government.

France said it would push to ease European Union environmental regulations on fallow farmland this week, as tractors blocked major highways out of Paris on Monday and nationwide farmers' protests intensified.

The government on Friday (January 26) dropped plans to gradually reduce state subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised an easing of environmental regulations, but farmers' organisations said that was not enough and pledged to step up the pressure.