10 - Contestation in the streets: European protest and the emerging Euro-polity

Summary

By the second week of September 2000, truckers, farmers, and fishermen protesting against high fuel prices had paralyzed the economies and governments of Western Europe – cutting off the fuel supply of businesses and private citizens alike. Linked together through trade unions and engaging in wildcat actions, the protesters made good their threats to raise blockades in a matter of hours, armed with little more than their vehicles and cell-phones.

This round of protests against the high cost of fuel had started several weeks earlier in France, where fishermen barricaded fishing ports and turned away cross-channel ferries. Joined by truckers, farmers, and taxi drivers, they paralyzed refineries and oil depots, brought traffic on the Calais–Paris motorway to a standstill, and barricaded the streets of Marseille with tons of sardines and anchovies.

The fishermen's actions had the desired effect: gaining concessions from the French government in the form of subsidy payments to offset fuel costs. But the government's capitulation, conversely, failed to stem the protests. Emboldened by the success of the fishermen, French truckers seized the initiative, blockading some eighty petrol depots and oil refineries across the country, shutting down the airport in Nice, and closing the channel tunnel, prompting the European Commission to launch an investigation into whether the French government was failing to uphold its obligation under EU rules to facilitate the free flow of goods and services.