Truck drivers protesting soaring fuel prices have slowed highway traffic outside Paris and other French cities.

Labor union officials say 40 protests nationwide are designed to win reductions in gasoline taxes and other government measures to offset rising world fuel prices.

France’s traffic information center says truckers who were driving at a snail’s pace brought highway traffic to a near-standstill on highways around the French capital.

Protesters also blockaded highways in the southeastern Rhone-Alpes region and in other parts of eastern France.

The protests Monday were a continuation of weeks of protests over high fuel prices.