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GV French farmers halting meat trucks at frontier post between Belgium and France
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CU & GV farmers hammering nails into planks and placing planks in front of trucks to prevent them crossing border (FOUR SHOTS)
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SV farmers examining containers on trucks (TWO SHOTS)
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SV driver gets out of cab and walks around to back of vehicle as demonstrators look on
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SCU border official looks on as farmers surround halted truck
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GV trucks standing idle at border post
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Initials KM/0110


TELERECORDING

Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: French farmers have acted to stop imports to France of pork from Belgium, Denmark and West Germany. At one major border point they erected barriers across the highway to prevent trucks entering France from Belgium.

SYNOPSIS: Trucks suspected of carrying pork were halted by a delegation of angry French farmers who feat the impact of foreign imports on the market for their own products. And as the barriers went up across the border, the protest was becoming a point of tension between the two governments, and was carried into a meeting of Common Market farm ministers in Brussels. Each truck was examined for evidence.

Tension mounted as the queue of trucks became longer. It is reported that the Belgium farm minister Antoine Humblet has protested directly to his French counterpart over the blockade.

In Brussels, European Economic Community (EEC) officials said Belgium, Holland and West Germany have demanded an end to the French farmer's protest. And at a Common Market Farm Ministers' meeting Belgium threatened to refuse to discuss the central issue of this dispute -- some taxes which mean subsidies for European farm imports to France.