France’s national farmers’ federation, the FNSEA, is more like an advertising agency than a trade union. When marching in national demonstrations, they make a point of referring to themselves as ‘paysans’ (peasants), . Dare to call one of them a ‘peasant’ away from the television cameras and you’ll get a bunch of fives and a reminder that there is more to farming than spreading muck. While I was learning my way around government offices in Paris, I found myself being quizzed by a couple of burly agricultural types. I had just arrived at the agriculture ministry in rue de Varenne with an appointment to talk to the minister about the Common Agriculture Policy. These two weren’t as smartly dressed as the ministry staff, but were very interested in my business, only withdrawing when they spotted the minister’s chef de cabinet coming back. “Ouf, les syndicalistes, c’est pénible,” he groaned. “Lequel syndicat…?” “FNSEA.” The conversation moved to less thorny topics and I took a sheaf of papers from my briefcase. “…let’s show those to my advisers, shall we…?” the minister pleaded. There was a brief exchange of words at the office door, just enough to identify the pair I had met in the foyer minutes earlier. “…subvention? …fonds publiques…?” This was clearly a fishing trip. “C’est un thème d’interet tout public…” I started. “…donc le public va payer…” came the answer. Stripped of any wider context or or even interest, the topic pretty much curled up and died on the spot.
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peter
Comment posted November 14 by Let’s talk agriculture:
Let’s talk agriculture! – Urban Food Chains
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[…] head of the FNSEA, had Sarkozy’s ear and seized any opportunity to put ideas into his head (click here). In Beulin’s case, it was personal: the farming unions had operated a system for sitting in […]
I need to run a few things past you, since there are a number of possible interpretations in the citation, which attributes its origins to the website rather than resembling any form of reader’s return address. This time round, I’ll play a straight bat and reply, but in future I will not respond to unattributable comments or shame them into supplying a nom de plume..
OK, so you’ve quoted a passage from a recent post, which I assume reflects the point you want to make or the detail you might like to check. Let’s start with the year in question: Barnier took charge at rue de Varenne in May 2007, leaving in June 2009.
Barnier’s predecessor, Christine Lagarde, was in office for just four weeks and although I met her later in other contexts and we discussed a number of issues in different sectors, agriculture was not one of them. Appointed as France’s finance minister when Europe was going through the 2008 economic crash, Lagarde left her government post in 2011 to become managing director of the IMF.
The agriculture minister I referred to in my peasant post was Dominique Bussereau, a Charentais peasant and happy to be described as such. In those days since I was in Paris for the Salon de l’Agriculture quite often , including 2005 and 2006 (SIA takes place in March). Had I met Christine Lagarde at rue de Varenne, I would have remembered the occasion.
I have just realised that the link is doing double duty. The peasant/not peasant post has Permalink: https://urbanfoodchains.uk/2025/11/08/when-is-a-peasant-not-a-peasant/ and will be followed soon by a further post about the French solution for the economic crises of the period, which took Lagarde off to run the IMF.
Hope that answers your question for now,
Regards,
Peter Crosskey
Let’s talk agriculture! – Urban Food Chains
[…] head of the FNSEA, had Sarkozy’s ear and seized any opportunity to put ideas into his head (click here). In Beulin’s case, it was personal: the farming unions had operated a system for sitting in […]