French farmers confront free market
The big unknown is whether the evident social militancy in France can find a political form able to impose an alternative policy economic and social on the government. Only thus can the creeping influence of Le Pen's xenophobic agenda be counter-acted — Colin Meade. *
International Viewpoint #215 • October 28, 1991
FRANCE which has favored large farmers
Giscard D'Estaing's UDF, as well as the far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, but also the Communist Party, claimed to support the farmers, though their real interest in reaping the fruits of the next electoral harvest was obvious. The ruling Socialist Party was absent from the demonstration.
OVER 200,000 marched on Paris on September 29 in one of the largest demonstrations of aggrieved farmers that France has ever seen. The demonstration, called by the National Federation of Agricultural Unions (FNSEA) and the National Center of Young Farmers (CNJA), was organized to protest a series of developments that threaten to at the expense of small time farmers for the last forty years by paying across the board sums to all agricultural workers, was not criticized. The prices paid for agricultural goods has been lowered without a corresponding rise in consumer prices. Likewise, the mechanisms which allow intermediaries to reap huge profits have not been attacked.
The rapidly declining num-
Right-wing manipulations
The RPR was particularly interested in the possibilities of winning farmers to their banner. In 1988, farmers voted for their Presidential candidate Jacques Chirac, head of the party and current Mayor of Paris, at twice the rate of other voters. The week before the demonstration, the RPR mobilized their supporters to organize welcoming committees for the marchers. The far right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen did the same.
eliminate tens of thousands of small farmers. KEITH MANN B EEF producers, whose complaints were particularly well publicized, were protesting declining prices paid for beef. There has been a crisis of overproduction in this sector as a result of relatively high rates paid to beef producers in recent years, as well as a fall in grain prices. Meat production rose over 5% in 1990.
ber of rural inhabitants has meant that farmers and others whose prime pursuits are agricultural now represent only four percent of the French electorate. However, according to one study, fully 17% of all voters have some connection to the land whether as retired farmers, their spouses, or those who work part of the time on the land. It was not surprising, therefore, that French political parties, mostly the mainstream bourgeois parties like the neo-Gaullist
Rally for the Republic (RPR) and Valery
The parties of the right with their liberal programs have little to offer farmers and agricultural workers in the way of solutions to their problems. However, the vagueness of the slogans proposed by the FNSEA and CNJA and the lack of any specific appeal to the poorer layers of the rural population means that the right and far-right could make inroads amongst the
Worse yet is the possibility of farmers turning their anger against their counterparts in other countries. Yet in spite of the
Socialist government's support crumbles While the amount of livestock prepared for consumption in the first half of 1991 is over 18% higher than for the corre- THE farmers are not the only part of French society currently taking militant action. They have been joined in recent weeks by nurses, demanding higher sponding period the year before.
The agricultural commission of the pay and more staff, social welfare assistants, protesting against the degradaEuropean Economic Community (EEC) tion of their working conditions", artists (including theatre workers) calling for a better social security deal and teachers. Furthermore, disturbances, often vioclaims there is an overall crisis of overproduction with meat stocks currently at lent, have continued in the countryside. The Force Ouvrière union confedera110%. This crisis is partially the result of tion has called for a general, cross-sectoral strike on October 24, a call that has increased imports of cheap beef from received the support of France's largest union confederation, the CGT. Eastern Europe and the decline of exports This wave of protest comes at a time when the ruling Socialist Party, which to the Middle East following the Gulf nas pursued a "social-liberal" policy combining neo-liberal economic policies war. with relatively high social spending sustained by high taxation, is sinking in the
In addition, consumption has fallen of polls in the runup to the 1992 regional elections, which will be followed by full late, due in part to an increase in the con- legislative elections in 1993. As is the way with governments seeking to be resumption of pork and chicken at the elected, a number of gestures have been made towards stilling social disconexpense of beef consumption, as well as tent, including a new 7.5bn franc "anti-unemployment" programme and plenty widespread fears of growth-inducing drugs injected into livestock. However, aware that there is little likelihood that it can retain power alone, the
However, the stated goal of the orga- SP leaders have been floating a new centrist "Federation for Progress", pernizers of the demonstration was merely to haps drawing in the Greens, dissident ex-Communist Party currents and any"sensitize" Parisians to the problems fac- one else who is interested. European Commission president Jacques Delors is ing rural France. seen as a possible leader of such a coalition.
The vague demands of the demonstra- The ideological cement for this alliance may well be provided by the rising tors reflected the failure of the main farm- threat of the far right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose voters are er and agricultural workers' organizations being wooed by the establishment rightwing parties. Recent racist outbursts by to reflect the sectoral and social differenc- the leaders of the two biggest such parties, Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac and es amongst those who work on the land. former President Valery Giscard D'Estaing, should be seen in this light. Grain farmers, vine growers, cattle farmers and sheep herders, small-time farmers and large land holders marched together, and are for the moment all represented by 18 the same leadership.
Accordingly, the system of subsidies of meetings with union leaders.