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There was severe disruption to traffic across France Saturday as thousands of truck drivers blocked roads for the second time in a month in the latest protest against government plans to introduce an environmental tax on heavy goods vehicles. … The French interior ministry estimated 2,200 trucks were involved in the protest, while organizers put the figure at 4,500. … The blockades are part of efforts by agricultural and road transport workers to force the French government to scrap its plans to introduce a so-called “ecotax”—a levy on French and foreign vehicles transporting commercial goods weighing over 3.5 tonnes. …

President Francois Hollande wants to balance the French deficit by taxing the rich, taxing the poor, taxing trucks, raising the VAT, and increasing the tax on corporations. That policy blew sky high this week in a storm of riots by Brittany farmers. Please consider French Gov't Backs down on Truck Tax After Riots French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Tuesday indefinitely suspended the introduction of a green tax on trucks following riots at the weekend in the Brittany region. The move comes three days after a protest by hundreds of food producers, artisans and distributors in the western Brittany region...

The French government has decided to suspend an unpopular environmental tax on heavy goods vehicles following a weekend of protests in Brittany. The move is expected to cost the France hundreds of millions of euros in lost revenue. … The unpopular “ecotax”, aimed at encouraging environmentally-friendly commercial transport, was designed to impose new levies on French and foreign vehicles transporting commercial goods weighing over 3.5 tonnes (3.86 tons). Critics in Brittany said the tax would seriously damage the region’s precarious farming and food sectors by increasing transportation costs, driving companies out of business and leading to major job losses. …