Angry lorry drivers block border crossing

Press, 19 June 1980, Page 7

Angry lorry drivers block border crossing

NZPA-Reuter La Junquera, Spain Angry Spanish lorry drivers yesterday said that a blockade they have set up on the French bord&r would no: be lifted until the French Government gave assurances that they could travel through France safely. Big traffic jams built up yesterday at La Junquera, main crossing point for Catalonia and Spain’s Mediterranean tourist resorts, as hundreds of lorries completely blocked the border. The drivers later agreed to let non-French vehicles pass, but customs officials said that no French cars or lorries were being allowed through.

The drivers began their demonstration on Monday after French farmers set fire t. 10 Spanish lorries near Perpignan in a protest against imports of cheap Spanish agricultural produce. The drivers’ action has not affected the border crossing at Iran on the Atlantic coast. Drivers there said lorries were going into France in convoys of 15 for greater security. The Spanish Foreign Minister (Mr Marcelino Oreja) summoned the French ambassador (Mr Emmanuel de Margerie) to protest against the truck burnings. The French diplomat assured Mr Oreja that special security measures were being taken to protect Span-

ish lorries, Foreign Ministry sources said. But the drivers were not satisfied and decided to continue their protest, which h;.. done nothing to ease already strained Franco-Span-ish relations. The Spanish Government was dismayed when the French President (Mr Valery Giscard d’Estaing) recently suggested that there should be a pause in the proposed expansion of the Common Market. Spain hopes to join in 1983. In addition, Spanish trawlermen are complaining bitterly over alleged harassment by French naval patrols in* the latest round of a long-standing fishing dispute between the two countries.