OPINION: French farmers are heading for an EU showdown in the New Year

The first of a series of winter offensives against the French government has begun – writes John Lichfield. Farmers, just ahead of rail workers and civil servants, are demonstrating in at least 80 places around the country.

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Is the campaign likely to intensify into the kind of prolonged autoroute blockages that we saw in January? Will we see another “siege of Paris” by impoverished farmers driving €250,000 tractors?
 Probably not – or at least not yet. The mood of the protests is not as angry and desperate as it was at the beginning of the year.
READ ALSO Protesting French farmers set up roadblocks and threaten to ‘starve Toulouse’

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The attempts to block food trucks and smear public buildings with liquid manure are mostly confined to the south-west. They are mostly, so far, the work of the hard right farmers’ union, Coordination Rurale.   
This protest is that very French thing: a pre-emptive strike.
French farmers (but not all French farmers) want to stop something that the European Union has been trying to achieve for a quarter of a century, a ground-breaking trade treaty with the South American “common market”, Mercosur.
The Michel Barnier government says that it agrees with the farmers. So does President Emmanuel Macron. So do all French political parties from the hard Left to the Far Right.
The Mercosur deal would open the EU market to a limited amount of South American beef and poultry – hence the anger in south-west France.

The treaty would be good news for other farmers, from milk producers to wine growers. It would provide new markets for European industry, from German cars to French luxury goods, at a time when Donald Trump is threatening to place 10 percent tariffs on all EU exports.
It is – or should be – a step towards President Macron’s ambition to create a “strategic Europe”, capable of promoting its own global interests against the US and China.
The European Commission and a majority of the 27 EU countries want to conclude the treaty before the end of the year. France is digging in its heels. It is trying to assemble the  “blocking minority” that it needs – four countries and 35 percent of the population of the EU – to send the text back for further negotiation.
The issue has been framed by French media as a test-case for France’s allegedly waning influence in Brussels. In a letter to the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, last week, 600 French deputies and senators warned that a defeat for France on Mercosur “would create a popular explosion in a country already threatened by anti-European populism”.

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The protesting French farmers do have other grievances. Some of the subsidies and the softer environmental standards promised to resolve the January dispute have still to be delivered. The June-July snap election, the budget crisis and the absence of a proper government from July to September prevented decisions from being made.
However, the big, mobilising issue is the Mercosur treaty, which has brought to a head French farmers’ schizophrenic  attitude to “free trade”.
France is one of the world’s great food exporting countries. Trade is vital to the French wine, dairy and cereal industries. The Mercosur treaty with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay would be good for wine and dairy exports in particular.
The problem is mostly for the French beef and poultry industries. Beef farmers, small and already struggling, fear the consequences of competition with the giant beef ranches of the Argentinian pampas and the flattened ex-rain forests of Brazil.

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The Mercosur treaty, they complain, will give up to 7 percent of the EU beef market to South American ranches which farm on a vaster scale and do not have to respect the same rules on pesticides, animal welfare or the environment. This, they fear, will be enough to destroy many French beef farms which are already struggling for survival.
Poultry farmers have similar grievances.
Defenders of the draft treaty say that it already bars food imports which fail to meet EU standards, such as beef reared with artificial hormones. Farmers and the French government say the wording is not tough enough. Emmanuel Macron told the G20 summit in Brazil this week that there is no chance of France signing the treaty “in its present form”.
In truth, Mercosur has become a scarecrow or bogeyman which symbolises farmers’ wider impatience with EU environmental and animal-safety standards.
All trade deals involve balancing gains and losses. European industry and parts of European agriculture have much to win from the Mercosur deal. South American countries understandably want balancing concessions through new European markets for their powerful meat industries.
Should small beef farmers be sacrificed for the interests of Volkswagen, Airbus and LVMH?  
They are threatened by more than Mercosur and already rely on EU subsidies for 50 percent of their income. VW, Airbus and LVMH are vital to Europe’s future prosperity. Beef farming is vital to some small communities in France.
Germany, Spain and others are furious that France should preach “European strategic autonomy” and reject the Mercosur deal. Italy, Poland, Austria and Ireland are on France’s side, for now.
A decision by the end of the year looks fanciful but France may not be able to hold up the treaty forever. There is unlikely to be a big farm war in France this month or next but the armoured divisions of tractors may move on Paris and Brussels early in the New Year.  
You can find the latest on the farmer protests, and traffic disruption that they cause, in our Strikes & Protests section HERE.

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Is the campaign likely to intensify into the kind of prolonged autoroute blockages that we saw in January? Will we see another “siege of Paris” by impoverished farmers driving €250,000 tractors?
 Probably not – or at least not yet. The mood of the protests is not as angry and desperate as it was at the beginning of the year.
READ ALSO Protesting French farmers set up roadblocks and threaten to ‘starve Toulouse’
The attempts to block food trucks and smear public buildings with liquid manure are mostly confined to the south-west. They are mostly, so far, the work of the hard right farmers’ union, Coordination Rurale.   
This protest is that very French thing: a pre-emptive strike.
French farmers (but not all French farmers) want to stop something that the European Union has been trying to achieve for a quarter of a century, a ground-breaking trade treaty with the South American “common market”, Mercosur.
The Michel Barnier government says that it agrees with the farmers. So does President Emmanuel Macron. So do all French political parties from the hard Left to the Far Right.
The Mercosur deal would open the EU market to a limited amount of South American beef and poultry – hence the anger in south-west France.
The treaty would be good news for other farmers, from milk producers to wine growers. It would provide new markets for European industry, from German cars to French luxury goods, at a time when Donald Trump is threatening to place 10 percent tariffs on all EU exports.
It is – or should be – a step towards President Macron’s ambition to create a “strategic Europe”, capable of promoting its own global interests against the US and China.
The European Commission and a majority of the 27 EU countries want to conclude the treaty before the end of the year. France is digging in its heels. It is trying to assemble the  “blocking minority” that it needs – four countries and 35 percent of the population of the EU – to send the text back for further negotiation.
The issue has been framed by French media as a test-case for France’s allegedly waning influence in Brussels. In a letter to the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, last week, 600 French deputies and senators warned that a defeat for France on Mercosur “would create a popular explosion in a country already threatened by anti-European populism”.
The protesting French farmers do have other grievances. Some of the subsidies and the softer environmental standards promised to resolve the January dispute have still to be delivered. The June-July snap election, the budget crisis and the absence of a proper government from July to September prevented decisions from being made.
However, the big, mobilising issue is the Mercosur treaty, which has brought to a head French farmers’ schizophrenic  attitude to “free trade”.
France is one of the world’s great food exporting countries. Trade is vital to the French wine, dairy and cereal industries. The Mercosur treaty with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay would be good for wine and dairy exports in particular.
The problem is mostly for the French beef and poultry industries. Beef farmers, small and already struggling, fear the consequences of competition with the giant beef ranches of the Argentinian pampas and the flattened ex-rain forests of Brazil.
The Mercosur treaty, they complain, will give up to 7 percent of the EU beef market to South American ranches which farm on a vaster scale and do not have to respect the same rules on pesticides, animal welfare or the environment. This, they fear, will be enough to destroy many French beef farms which are already struggling for survival.
Poultry farmers have similar grievances.
Defenders of the draft treaty say that it already bars food imports which fail to meet EU standards, such as beef reared with artificial hormones. Farmers and the French government say the wording is not tough enough. Emmanuel Macron told the G20 summit in Brazil this week that there is no chance of France signing the treaty “in its present form”.
In truth, Mercosur has become a scarecrow or bogeyman which symbolises farmers’ wider impatience with EU environmental and animal-safety standards.
All trade deals involve balancing gains and losses. European industry and parts of European agriculture have much to win from the Mercosur deal. South American countries understandably want balancing concessions through new European markets for their powerful meat industries.
Should small beef farmers be sacrificed for the interests of Volkswagen, Airbus and LVMH?  
They are threatened by more than Mercosur and already rely on EU subsidies for 50 percent of their income. VW, Airbus and LVMH are vital to Europe’s future prosperity. Beef farming is vital to some small communities in France.
Germany, Spain and others are furious that France should preach “European strategic autonomy” and reject the Mercosur deal. Italy, Poland, Austria and Ireland are on France’s side, for now.
A decision by the end of the year looks fanciful but France may not be able to hold up the treaty forever. There is unlikely to be a big farm war in France this month or next but the armoured divisions of tractors may move on Paris and Brussels early in the New Year.  
You can find the latest on the farmer protests, and traffic disruption that they cause, in our Strikes & Protests section HERE.