@Wilshire The Russians have made intensive efforts to subvert Polish farmers to act against Ukraine; including pay large sums of money to rabble rousers. Most of the farmers don't know that they are working for Russia.
Yeah, the whole police not acting thing is not great.
This is not the first time that the EU has had this sort of thing happen. I don't think that this would fly in the US, but I expect that there's strong domestic political pressure in the country from people who don't like competion and no law enforcement at the EU level that would deal with it.
A couple years back, I remember first reading about French protestors hijacking and dumping out the contents of Spanish wine tanker trucks that had been outcompeting them and the French police being present but just watching.
It sounds like that is still happening:
French winegrowers smashed hundreds of crates of Cava and dumped thousands of gallons of Spanish rosé to protest cheap imports impacting domestic wine sales.
Vignerons protesting in the border town of Boulou intercepted lorries carrying Spanish wine into France, smashing 10,000 bottles of Cava and spilling a whole lorry load of rosé imported in bulk onto the road.
Low prices of foreign wine have caused problems for local vignerons, who are struggling to sell their own products, taking to the streets to demonstrate against what they claim is unfair competition.
Frédéric Rouanet, chairman of the Aude Vignerons Association, who spearheaded the protest, warned French officials of the protest on Tuesday, as wine growers gathered in Ferrals-des-Corbières to discuss what they described as the worst wine crisis in 20 years.
“If you want peace, prepare for war,” he said during the meeting.
“Let it be known in Paris,” he continued, “that the situation in southern France is getting a bit worse every day and that us honest workers have decided to revolt.”
“Let Paris know that the government bears a heavy responsibility for the drop in wine consumption and that they must compensate us accordingly.”
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