French farmers choked off major motorways around Paris on Monday, threatening to blockade the capital in an intensifying standoff with the government over working conditions.

In recent weeks there has been a slew of protests in France, a major agricultural producer, by farmers angry about incomes, red tape and environmental policies they say undermine their ability to compete with other countries.

Protesting farmers started the operation by blocking the A13 highway to the west of the capital, the A4 to the east and the A6 on which hundreds of tractors rolled towards Paris from the south.

By mid-afternoon they appeared to have met their objective of establishing eight chokepoints on major roads into Paris, according to Sytadin, a traffic monitoring service.

"We need answers," said Karine Duc, a farmer in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department as she joined a convoy of tractors heading........

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