Thanks for levering up the lid on French farmers’ discontents. One could go further. Here in the South West where the protests began, there are several types of small farmers. There’s the survivors of traditional dairy cow and duck, pig or veal raising mixed farming, employing green fertilisers and manure and growing much of what’s fed to their animals. Maybe quarter of these actively seek to grow their businesses, the others merely try to maintain something to pass onto future generations if they’re interested, with mixed success. And then there’s a growing number of niche vegetable, fruit or dairy producers, including young urban converts to rural life, for whom organic produce means more money.
Or it should. Green margins have been squeezed by the way distribution is organised and only those who can sell directly escape. That’s the issue which unites all subsectors and the main issue with government is Macron’s failure to deliver the promised reform of produce markets, something which has to be appreciated by all politicians who’d come into play.
Eco politics breaks down to the perceived consequences of particular measures. On irrigation there can indeed be inter-sectoral conflict. But all united in opposition to Macron’s gilet jaunes revival act, imposition of green taxes on agricultural fuels. And farmers consider they’re the best judge of environmental consequences as they’re in direct encounter with nature. Failure to respect that is bound to inflame anti-system responses. Around here they’ve been led by informal associations of youngish farmers whose early nocturnal activities included turning village signs upside down, which is how the way the world is run seems to them. But in their long working days their doing their best to hold that world together and make it work for them. By organising local co- op farm shops for example.
Rocky Martiano
20 days ago
Interesting analysis of a complex issue which would never be found in any anglophone MSM.
That both right and left are able to identify with this farmers movement, as with the Gilets Jaunes, suggests that the traditional political spectrum of the post-war era is disintegrating, despite the efforts of politicians on both wings to maintain their polarised identities. Heterogenous groups from apparently opposing ideologies can now come together on issues of common interest, beyond the control of their political masters. No bad thing in my view.
French farmers reversed entry signs in towns, villages and most have remained as exccellent reminders. Anglophone MSM cannot be expected to be interested for, from here at least, it seems in propaganda sabre rattling woke mode.
glyn harries
18 days ago
Good article. There is a clear split within farming. Many of the farmers at the front of photos in recent protests are representatative of the rich farmers long happy to receive large sums of EU cash while farming destructively both of the natural world and smaller family farms.
Worth noting though that the French Left always had strong support in many rural areas in the poorer south.
Ted Ditchburn
14 days ago
I continue to feel discussing the various upheavals beginning to gain momentum across Europe in terms of left or right political models from , well the 1860s and 70s basically, is just failing to provide insight into what is really going on.
I do feel David Goodhart’s idea of Anywhere’s(or Nowhere’s) and Somewhere’s captures what is happening far more usefully than the left/right model of another age.
I can see people are very attached to that Left/Right idea.
But if *The Somewhere’s’ are non-political, small ‘c’ conservatives and *The Anywhere’s*, the liberal, Wokey people, then the real fault lines in society in almost every western democracy, not just in Europe or the UK, are far better opened up to analysis and explanation.
It becomes obvious why all sorts of disparate elements from parties from Alba (Alec) to Zemmour (Eric), via Sunak’s pink Tories, Starmer’s light blue Tories, to Farage, Le Pen, and Trump are rendering the old red walls, blue walls, yellow walls and now even green walls, irrelevant; right, left and centre.
Pun intended.
Thanks for levering up the lid on French farmers’ discontents. One could go further. Here in the South West where the protests began, there are several types of small farmers. There’s the survivors of traditional dairy cow and duck, pig or veal raising mixed farming, employing green fertilisers and manure and growing much of what’s fed to their animals. Maybe quarter of these actively seek to grow their businesses, the others merely try to maintain something to pass onto future generations if they’re interested, with mixed success. And then there’s a growing number of niche vegetable, fruit or dairy producers, including young urban converts to rural life, for whom organic produce means more money.
Or it should. Green margins have been squeezed by the way distribution is organised and only those who can sell directly escape. That’s the issue which unites all subsectors and the main issue with government is Macron’s failure to deliver the promised reform of produce markets, something which has to be appreciated by all politicians who’d come into play.
Eco politics breaks down to the perceived consequences of particular measures. On irrigation there can indeed be inter-sectoral conflict. But all united in opposition to Macron’s gilet jaunes revival act, imposition of green taxes on agricultural fuels. And farmers consider they’re the best judge of environmental consequences as they’re in direct encounter with nature. Failure to respect that is bound to inflame anti-system responses. Around here they’ve been led by informal associations of youngish farmers whose early nocturnal activities included turning village signs upside down, which is how the way the world is run seems to them. But in their long working days their doing their best to hold that world together and make it work for them. By organising local co- op farm shops for example.
Interesting analysis of a complex issue which would never be found in any anglophone MSM.
That both right and left are able to identify with this farmers movement, as with the Gilets Jaunes, suggests that the traditional political spectrum of the post-war era is disintegrating, despite the efforts of politicians on both wings to maintain their polarised identities. Heterogenous groups from apparently opposing ideologies can now come together on issues of common interest, beyond the control of their political masters. No bad thing in my view.
French farmers reversed entry signs in towns, villages and most have remained as exccellent reminders. Anglophone MSM cannot be expected to be interested for, from here at least, it seems in propaganda sabre rattling woke mode.
Good article. There is a clear split within farming. Many of the farmers at the front of photos in recent protests are representatative of the rich farmers long happy to receive large sums of EU cash while farming destructively both of the natural world and smaller family farms.
Worth noting though that the French Left always had strong support in many rural areas in the poorer south.
I continue to feel discussing the various upheavals beginning to gain momentum across Europe in terms of left or right political models from , well the 1860s and 70s basically, is just failing to provide insight into what is really going on.
I do feel David Goodhart’s idea of Anywhere’s(or Nowhere’s) and Somewhere’s captures what is happening far more usefully than the left/right model of another age.
I can see people are very attached to that Left/Right idea.
But if *The Somewhere’s’ are non-political, small ‘c’ conservatives and *The Anywhere’s*, the liberal, Wokey people, then the real fault lines in society in almost every western democracy, not just in Europe or the UK, are far better opened up to analysis and explanation.
It becomes obvious why all sorts of disparate elements from parties from Alba (Alec) to Zemmour (Eric), via Sunak’s pink Tories, Starmer’s light blue Tories, to Farage, Le Pen, and Trump are rendering the old red walls, blue walls, yellow walls and now even green walls, irrelevant; right, left and centre.
Pun intended.