Rus in urbis
Back briefly to the Salon d’Agriculture - where yesterday three candidates, led by the rings in their noses, were paraded in front of the placidly on-looking beasts. There was a moment of near-panic when one contender, Bayrou, hesitated, nostrils flaring, as he got wind of one of his rivals, Philippe De Villiers. How in that multitude of different and pungent smells Bayrou scented De Villiers and sensed he wanted to have a sniff of him is one of those mysteries of animal communication which we mere humans will never understand, but after a brief pawing of the ground, Bayrou turned and, tail-up, galloped away pulling his handlers after him. After that, when the mighty bull, Jean-Marie Le Pen, turned up, the organisers made sure that none of the other prize beasts come anywhere close - not difficult since the Salon is enormous, filling 8 huge exhibition halls. In 8 hours you have not seen it all.
In the three weeks since I wrote that François Bayrou had bravely denounced the Common Agricultural Policy because it “kills African farmers” two things have happened: Bayrou has climbed from 14% in the polls to 20%, and at the same time he has lost his nerve. The higher he climbs in the opinion polls, the more tepid his speeches have become. Three weeks ago he could afford to tell farmers the truth about the CAP, yesterday with victory now possible, every vote counts and he can no longer afford to offend anyone. Which means he can’t afford to tell the truth. Yesterday he jumped on the Chirac band-wagon, attacking Peter Mandelson in Brussels for wanting to tamper with agricultural subsidies as a preliminary to re-starting trade talks at the WTO. I wonder why these politicians go for the lesser man, instead of aiming their rhetoric at the boss of the WTO, who makes it clear on his web-site that he too sees agricultural trade barriers in Europe as a problem? Could it be because he’s a Frenchman, Pascal Lamy?
Philippe de Villiers, extreme right Movement for France, was even more explicit about the need for trade barriers: “Europe is falling apart,” he thundered. “Wheat from the Ukraine, plums from Chile, meat from the Argentine, wine from Australia. All products in which France excels, then Europe introduces competition…..”. It would be fascinating, during this election time, to have a French agriculture week - only French products in the shops, sold at a price that the farmers consider would bring them a fair income. Just so we could see what the prices are, and judge for ourselves whether we want to pay that, rather than having to rely on the figures and words provided by biased politicians.
Le Pen also wants to erect trade barriers, with a customs’ duty payable on all imports, food or otherwise. He sees that as the way to protect French products and raise money for the state. The Front National continues the trend started in the last presidential elections of picking up many voters from rural France, disllusioned not with the other candidates so much as the current batch of politicians who over 30 years have done so little to help the non-agricultural country people. Ségolène Royal also recognises that children in rural France are sometimes more disadvantaged than those living in the tower-block estates
On Monday I was sad to miss a different kind of agricultural salon, as my near neighbour José Bové held an open-day on his farm on the Larzac. Parisian journalists were shown a “typical agricultural dwelling” - an eco-friendly house Bové has had built from natural materials (wood, hemp etc) instead of the usual horribly unnatural stone, sand, lime and water. He treated them first to a press conference in his barn, everyone sitting on bales of hay, listening to the sheep munching, the grass growing and Bové talking, then to a meal of local produce. I would loved to have gone, sink a few organic beers and set the world to rights, chewing the cud or even crossing swords with the anti-globals, but could not, because Monday afternoon is when I teach English in the local primary school and that handful of underprivileged children take priority. As Mme Royal says, they need more help than anyone else in France, and are largely forgotten. Rumour has it that many anti-globals no longer have any confidence in M Bové, they feel he is going to get his 500 signatures. If that is true it will be a bad day for democracy and a bad day for this campaign. I’ll go up and console him over a few organic beers.