Early this week, if you opened the maps app on your phone and zoomed in on Paris, you would notice something peculiar: Almost every major highway leading into the country’s capital city was marked in dark red.

There hasn’t been a bizarre pattern of accidents or terrorist attacks encircling the city. Instead, French farmers have finally become fed up with onerous government regulations and subsidy policies and have been laying siege on Paris since Monday with the best tools at their disposal: tractors. (READ MORE: The Buzz on ‘The Great Honey Bee Die-Off’)

France24 reports that farmers from around the country are participating in the protests and are prepared to make a nuisance of themselves until at least Thursday — when the European Union convenes for a summit discussing financial aid for Ukraine.

“We have everything we need to eat, barbecues, and a wall of hay to shield ourselves from the wind,” Jean-Baptiste Benoit, a farmer, told France24. “We have the equipment and we’re settling in alright!”

Woke Red Tape for Farmers

France is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, and its farmers receive the equivalent of $9.8 billion a year in subsidies. That may sound like a lot, but many of France’s small farmers claim they simply aren’t making a living wage, and they are fed up with the impossible maze of regulations and bureaucracy that are primarily a result of climate change policies from the EU and the French government.

For instance, one incoming subsidy requirement will require that farmers leave 4 percent of their farmland fallow (a measure usually implemented to avoid surplus production and to restore soil fertility). Farmers are also dealing with what they believe are onerous EU policies to restore France’s hedges — ones that have resulted in at least 14 different regulations.

In addition, the EU’s decision to support the war in Ukraine by not taxing Ukrainian imports has negatively affected the farming economy across Europe. Ukrainian farmers may be dealing with a war, but they aren’t dealing with the kinds of environmental regulations being imposed on their EU counterparts, which means that production is far cheaper. (READ MORE: New EPA Regulations Are a Death Sentence for Small Oil and Gas Producers)

The farmers believe that the threat is existential. Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, leader of farmers association, told protesters this week that they “are fighting this battle because if we don’t fight we die.” Karine Duc, a farmer who joined in on the protest, told Agence France-Presse: “This is the final battle for farming. It’s a question of survival.”

Meanwhile, the French government is trying to prevent the protest from becoming any more disruptive than it already has. Police have threatened action if the farmers and their tractors try to roll into the center of the city, the airports, or Rungis, the city’s largest wholesale marketplace. But the threats didn’t stop the farmers from driving a bit closer to the city on Wednesday.

This Is What Successful Protesting Looks Like

Of course, French farmers aren’t the only ones irritated at the EU — and they certainly aren’t the only ones using tractors to express their frustrations. Convoys of farmers have moved in on other major cities in Italy and Belgium, especially around Brussels, where the European Commission is meeting on Thursday.

The protests have been surprisingly successful thus far. The commission announced plans on Wednesday that could help reduce the impact of cheap exports from Ukraine and may even reduce the amount of land lying fallow for environmental purposes, according to the Associated Press. While those plans aren’t finalized, they are a sign that EU leaders may be concerned about the major disruption the farmers are causing. (READ MORE: Green Mythology Runs Rampant at COP28)

As the Washington Post noted earlier this week, farmers don’t appear in the mood to simply accept half-baked concessions meant to pacify them. They’ve been turning road signs upside down and spraying government buildings with manure for months now. Furthermore, they know they have the government in something of a tight spot. The annual Paris farm show is scheduled to take place at the end of February, EU elections are scheduled for June, and Paris is hosting the Summer Olympics in July — it would be rather embarrassing if France’s farmers attended with their tractors.

While the EU has yet to appease its farmers, the protests are a good lesson in what successfully combating elitist climate policies and government bureaucracy looks like. Small family farms in the U.S. currently struggling to cope with regulations, big government, and big business should watch closely.