Last July angry French farmers, who get the lion’s share of EU subsidies, were out on the roads again, stopping lorries carrying produce from Germany and Spain, tipping the contents onto the tarmac. Much of the EU subsidy goes to a few wealthy cereal producers; the rest of France’s farmers are losers in a brutal continent-wide price war. While the French have to pay a high minimum wage, they can’t compete with Spanish and German farmers, who employ Poles and Romanians.
An increasing proportion of “French” produce is actually made in Slovakia and other low-cost areas. The French are eating less meat, European milk quotas have ended, and supermarkets are forcing prices down. This is without the Russian sanctions that have reduced food exports by 10%. Every time the French government try to reform anything to do with farming (or, indeed, industry) it is forced to back-track, often by unions or by obscure groups in distant departments. It can’t do anything unilaterally about Russia, or force the Germans to stop using cheap labour. All it can do is offer farm loans at low interest rates, which then annoys industry, the Germans and everyone else. “The government has watched the “silent tragedy” overtaking French farms and done nothing. France ungovernable? No, simply ungoverned.” (Extracted from reports by Sascha Lehnartz, Die Welt, Berlin, Olivier d’Auzon, Le Huffington Post, Paris, and Antoine Miailhes, La Dépêche, Toulouse.)
I love visiting France, love the countryside, the language and the food. The French seem to have discovered, better than most, how to live. Now they seem adrift in the modern world of globalisation, Uber and competition, and cling to their unions and their leisure time increasingly desperately. The old ways were charming, civilised and enjoyable. Epicurus would have been at home in most French cities and villages.
There is a well-known Parisian restaurant called Le Boeuf sur le Toit. It used to be a fin de siecle palace of gold and mirrors and impeccable service; now, it has moved into a boring building, the service is horrible, the food average, and the French clientele now sprint through their meals and are out of there pdq, like Americans.
Let us quietly mourn for more leisurely times gone by, when eating and conversation were more important than rushing back to the office to uncomfortable feelings of indigestion.
I’m not suggesting this, but your article could be reformulated as an argument for leaving the EU. Although this means that they would lose the EU farm subsidy, it would be offset by not having to pay into the EU in the first place. The money could then be used to support all French farmers, not just the wealthy cereal producers. As for competition with other European countries, the French could impose a modest tarrif on foreign food, keeping French agriculture in business. As for Russia, outside the EU, the French would be free to sign their own free trade deal with Russia, allowing them to export food there more easily- especially as a Eurosceptic government would probably not be in favour of continuing the sanctions. The other benefit of all this is that the low interest loans currently needed to keep the industry afload would no longer be necessary.
Again, I must stress that I’m not a Eurosceptic. But I’m increasingly beginning to see the other side’s point of view. The establishment promised that the EU and the Euro would bring huge prosperity, but it hasn’t. A French exit will not usher in an economic boom, (it may do the opposite) but at least it may allow for some of the old way of life to come back.
An interesting take on the subject. I suspect that a lot of people are conflicted on this subject. On the one hand is the imperative of preventing more European wars and competitive tarriff barriers. On the other hand everyone has a right to protect his way of life. You don’t have to be an extremist crazy to acknowledge that immigration and low-wage price competition threaten the good things painfully put together to give West Europeans civilised and fairly secure lives. I like it that you feel you can be honest. Epicureanism doesn’t translate to universal political correctness. We must think for ourselves.