BORDEAUX: Farmers sprayed manure on government offices and kept up roadblocks in southern France on Sunday in protest against a mass cull of cows as officials urged Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to urgently intervene.

Many farmers in southern and southwest France have been incensed by the use of police force and the government’s mass slaughter policy to contain the spread of nodular dermatitis, widely known as lumpy skin disease.

Farmers have blocked roads after veterinarians on Friday slaughtered a herd of more than 200 cows in a village near the Spanish border after discovering a single case of the disease. Police had used tear gas to clear away angry demonstrators protecting the cattle.

“New blockades are underway,” Bertrand Venteau, head of hard-line farmers’ union Coordination Rurale, said. “It’s continuing and spreading.” While the leading FNSEA farming union supports the government’s strategy, Coordination Rurale and another union have called for protests, demanding a widespread vaccination campaign instead. Critics say the current state approach is not effective, often destroying a farmer’s lifetime of work.

On the A64 motorway, which has been blocked since Friday evening by dozens of tractors, farmers set up Christmas trees. “We’re here to spend the holidays,” said Cedric Baron, a cattle farmer.

Around 50 farmers blocked the N88 highway near the southern town of Albi.

“We are at war,” said another protester, Cedric Nespoulos. “As long as the government does not give up on mass slaughter, we will be here.” In the town of Millau, farmers sprayed liquid manure on the facade of a local government building as tractors and trucks dumped bales of hay, tires, and garbage in front of it.

Theo Alary, a sheep farmer, said the mass slaughter strategy was not working as the disease was spreading. “Culling animals just like that, with a snap of the fingers, riot police everywhere, we’re kicking everyone out and killing everyone,” he said. “What is this?” Carole Delga, head of the southern region of Occitanie, which has emerged as the epicentre of the outbreak, urged Lecornu to intervene to avoid an escalation.

“With each passing hour, indignation and anger are rising inexorably in the face of people’s despair,” she said in an open letter to the prime minister.

“It is time for you to intervene to ensure, as soon as possible, a frank and sincere dialogue with the farmers,” she added. Delga said many French people were “shocked” by the images of animals being slaughtered.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2025