Farmers light fires outside the European Parliament building in Brussels

"Protesters lit fires and hurled potatoes at riot police who responded with teargas and water annon in Brussels on Thursday, as tensions boiled over at a farmer demonstration against the EU’s planned trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur.

About 1,000 honking tractors rolled into the Belgian capital to heap pressure on an EU leaders’ summit where the deal’s fate hung in the balance.“We’re here to say no to Mercosur,” Belgian dairy farmer Maxime Mabille told AFP. “It’s like Europe has become a dictatorship,” he said, accusing European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of seeking to “force the deal through”.
At least 7,000 farmers staged a mostly peaceful march through the capital’s European quarter, where the Mercosur deal loomed large over an EU summit focused on funding Ukraine’s war effort.
But rowdy scenes erupted outside the European Parliament, where farmers lit a bonfire of tires and hay and threw tubers at the police, who fired back with teargas – with black smoke filling surrounding streets." msn