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Masked poultry farmers went on a mass 'egging' spree in anger at low prices.

The furious protesting French farmers threw 100,000 eggs out of the back of supermarket trucks in Cotes d’Armor, Brittany, on Tuesday night.

Then they smashed up pallets with another 100,000 eggs outside a tax office in the town of Carhaiz.

And they are threatening to smash an extra 100,000 a day until Sunday or their protest will become "more radical".

One shopkeeper said: “The mess and the smell is dreadful, but they are making their point.”

Their outrage is over an EU directive to protect the well-being of hens, but which they say has slashed profits.

The rules have sent production costs soaring, but the price of eggs has not risen as a result, farmers claim.

A group of 20 egg producers in the north-west region of France is now intent in destroying eggs to reduce supply and push the price up.

The destruction of 100,000 eggs a day equates to five per cent of the production of poultry farmers involved in the collective.

The group is now calling for France’s entire egg production to be reduced by five per cent to help raise prices, and asked the government to set up a specific area for eggs to be destroyed.

The farmers have vowed to smash 100,000 eggs a day until Sunday, from when they said their protest would become ‘more radical and with inevitable collateral damage’.

Poultry farmers currently get paid 63 pence per kilo of eggs, but the new EU directive means they cost 80 pence per kilo to produce, according to Yves-Marie Beaudet, the head of the egg section of the Brittany dairy farmers union.

The European Union had 15 to 20 million excess laying hens out of a total of around 350 million, Mr Beaudet said.

He added: “Our livelihoods are threatened. We are ready to give these eggs we are destroying to developing countries, but they cannot stay on French territory.

“We need France’s entire egg production to be reduced by five per cent, and our protest will continue and escalate until that happens.”

An EU directive that took effect on 1 January 2012 requires that all laying hens must be kept in larger cages with extra space to nest, scratch and roost.

French farmers are notorious for their extreme protests. Two months ago, they herded thousands of cows, pigs and sheep and pigs through the streets of Paris in protest at falling meat prices.