German farmers block roads with tractors in subsidies protest

Partial U-turn by Berlin fails to avert week-long nationwide action that government says could be co-opted by righwing extremists

German farmers blocked city centres, highways and motorway slip roads with tractors at the start of a week-long, nationwide protest over planned cuts to agricultural sector subsidies that the government said could be co-opted by rightwing extremists.

We are exercising our basic right to inform society and the political class that Germany needs a competitive agricultural sector," the president of the German farmers' association, Joachim Rukwied, told Stern magazine on Monday.