Clément Viktorovitch returns each week to the debates and political issues. Sunday, February 26: the inoxidable popularity of the Agricultural Show… especially among politicians.
One of the news this weekend is of course the opening of the Salon de l’Agriculture in Paris. The opportunity to ask ourselves why, basically, does this show interest us so much?
It is an inescapable subject. Journalists from all the newsrooms go there, the antennas relay it. However, when you think about it, there are dozens of fairs that take place at Porte de Versailles every year. How to explain that this one, in particular, holds our attention so much? The simple answer would be to say: if the press talks about it, it’s because politicians flock there. This is partly true, except that once we said that, we said nothing at all: we still have to explain why, of all the salons, this is the one that has become an unmissable political meeting.
There are several reasons for this, actually. First of all, the most obvious: this show, for politicians, is an opportunity to project image at little cost. They swallow in large mouthfuls all the culinary specialties that are offered to them, drink in large sips from the glasses that are handed to them. And by doing this, they give the French the impression of having broken bread with them. In a country like ours, where the social bond passes in particular by the art of the table, that is not anecdotal. There is also the parade of animals that you have to pet, carry, cuddle. Animals, eternal symbols of innocence and purity. Here again, these images work, they make you sympathetic.
At least, they can endear those who manage to appear authentic. From this point of view, we all have in mind the contrast between President Chirac, who was in this salon like a fish in water, and his successor Nicolas Sarkozy, uncomfortable, tense, who had let go at the Salon of Agriculture its famous “Get off, you poor bastard”. In one case as in the other, the images remained anchored in the memory of the Fifth Republic. For politicians, the reputational issue is immense.
Show a link with the rural world
The other feature that this event highlights and which is quite specific is the link with rural France. By exchanging with farmers and breeders, by showing that they know the subject, that they are able to ask the right questions, the political leaders demonstrate their link with the agricultural world. This is also why there is a competition for who will stay the longest in the aisles of the show – the prize going for the moment to Emmanuel Macron, with 14 hours and 30 minutes of wandering in 2019. The more they spend time with farmers, the more they hope to convince them of their interest.
Farmers, however, do not represent such a large electorate: a few hundred thousand people. But we can add a nuance. The sociologists Bertrand Hervieu and François Purseigle have calculated that, if we add the families and the jobs induced by the agro-food industry, we arrive at 17% of the registrants. It’s not enough to win an election… but it’s enough to lose it. And then, above all, through the agricultural world, the policies actually seek to affect a much wider sphere: that of the rural world, where many inhabitants have farmers in their genealogy, and where the professional organizations of the peasantry remain very present. For politicians, demonstrating proximity to farmers is the best way to address the eternal France of fields, villages and steeples.
communication operation
For the political leaders who go there, particularly during the campaign period, it is a communication issue, without a doubt. But what is being played out in this living room is bigger than that. In France, there are fewer and fewer farmers. Today, they represent only 1.5% of people in employment. 40 years ago, it was five times more. And yet, they continue to feed a large part of the French population.
Farmers don’t just bring us back to our history: they remind us that meeting our most basic needs is not easy. That to eat pasta, you need someone to grow wheat. In our society of overproduction and overtransformation, this evidence has long since ceased to be obvious to everyone. The Agricultural Show has the merit of reminding us of this.