In Belgium, they blocked the capital at the beginning of the week, with 900 tractors and driving through police barricades. As the week comes to a close, French farmers blocked traffic around Paris’ famed Arc de Triomphe monument.

The farmers say the protest was aimed “at saving French agriculture.” French police said they had arrested 66 people at the protest. In Belgium, farmers sprayed police with manure and lit bonfires with tires in a fiery day of action which saw barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles placed outside European Union institutions, and police dousing the crowd with water cannons.

The action comes days after a convoy of Spanish farmers led an estimated 20,000 people to protest outside the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. Spanish farmers conducted another four-day national action in early February, their complaints echoing what you could call common talking points from what has been an eruption of farmers protests in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy and Spain in recent months.

Protests have also emerged in England and Wales in recent months. The reasons given by farmers for their Europe-wide action present a direct challenge to the policies of European governments which they say are resulting in extreme pressure on small-scale farmers. British farmers issued a desperate plea last September, saying they too were “struggling to survive.”