France | Farmers: the new yellow vests?

In France, the discontent of farmers does not subside. Ten days after the start of the crisis, hundreds of tractors surrounded Paris on Monday as a show of fed up. Some are already talking about the new yellow vests. Should we qualify? Dominique Andolfatto, professor at the University of Burgundy, expert on social movements and author of the book Anatomy of trade unionismexplains the reasons for the anger.

Where is this crisis coming from in the agricultural world?

There are various reasons. A new tax on fuel. Difficulties linked to drought. A new bovine disease from Spain. Not to mention all these restrictive standards that we impose on farmers.

Imposed by whom?

The European Union (EU) imposes the standards. But there is a debate on the fact that France “overtransposes”, or weighs them down. French farmers are therefore forced to produce at a higher cost and, as a result, large retailers will buy products abroad for less, where health standards are lower. French farmers say that they are not able to compete in terms of price with this international agriculture which is American, Argentinian or Canadian. They consider it unequal competition.

What standards are these?

Lots of things, jumbled together. The use of phytosanitary products is much more restricted than in the past. There are standards regarding the spreading of manure. There are standards around hedges that limit fields, which have been removed and need to be replenished to retain water and prevent drought. Farmers say that 14 different standards are imposed on them around this issue. There is also this European policy which requires that 4% of land be set aside. That doesn’t seem like much in absolute terms. But a farmer will tell you that if he has 200 hectares, that will cause him a considerable loss of income. For some, that’s a pretty big sacrifice.

You talk about “overtransposition” of European standards in France. How can we explain this excess of zeal?

Officially, there are more than 30,000 civil servants in France who deal with agriculture. Maybe they want to do something… I don’t know [rires] ! This is a very French problem of overadministration. The administration administers, so it will be draconian in implementing standards.

Is this revolt of the peasant world a spontaneous or organized movement?

Spontaneous at the base, in the sense that it was not initially supported by trade union organizations, but by small farmers in the south-west of France. It gives him a more vindictive color. More determined. It’s something that’s in the gut. But the main union, the National Federation of Agricultural Trade Unions (FNSEA) very quickly took control and is now supervising the movement. I think she wants the river to return to its bed. But it’s not that easy. For the moment, we are still in a bidding war.

We are talking about the new yellow vests. What do you think ?

There are commonalities and quite a few differences. The common point is that one of the origins of the movement is this new tax on fuel. With the yellow vests, there was also this rural dimension. Like the farmers, they cut roads, they occupied roundabouts. The difference is that it is still a corporatist movement. The yellow vests were a lot of rather poorly organized categories, there was a lot of improvisation, it was more heterogeneous. There, there is still control by agricultural unionism. There are also farmers who are big bosses, corporate employers. The yellow vests were rather the France of the small, the forgotten.

What do they expect from politics? The new Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, has already announced some measures, but nothing to calm things down.

There are transactions currently taking place on the issue of standards. Attal has already promised to revise some of them downwards. There are also requests on the question of income. That farmers can benefit from a kind of guaranteed minimum income, because some, given the context, do not pay themselves wages, or have very low wages. We are talking about 500 to 600 euros per month. Official statistics say that one in five French farmers are below the poverty line.

We are also talking about a profession where the risk of suicide is 43% greater than in the rest of the population. The discomfort is very great…

I think that, underlying this whole debate, is the fact that the French agricultural model is in the process of transforming. That is to say that, little by little, we are moving towards calling into question the family farm model. What we could call a “firm-farm” is emerging, that is to say that agriculture is becoming the work of big business, that there is a financialization of agriculture, that these are industrial groups which rent land, which have thousands of cattle, which operate large agricultural areas. It is an agriculture that is very capital intensive… I think that the farmer realizes that he cannot continue to exploit the land as he has done until now. We need to change agricultural practices. The old model is still present, but it’s a bit like the end of a world in a way.