In the past 12 months, the cost of running Jean-Marie Dirat’s lamb farm in southwest France has jumped by 35,000 euros (US$37,719), driven up by increasingly expensive fertilizers, fuel, electricity and pesticides.
Money is so tight this year that he cannot pay himself. To his surprise, he even calculated he would be eligible for the minimum welfare benefit, given to society’s poorest.
“My grandfather had 15 cows and 15 hectares. He raised his kids, his family, without any problem. Today, me and my wife, we have 70 hectares, 200 sheep, and we can’t even pay ourselves a salary,” Dirat told reporters at a roadblock made of hay bales that barred access to a nuclear plant.
Illustration: Yusha
Other farmers in the French southwest, where a nationwide movement started, complain about red tape and restrictions on water usage, as well as competition from Ukrainian imports let into the EU to help its economy during the war.
Farmers elsewhere in Europe are similarly disgruntled, with protests in Germany, Poland, Romania and Belgium coming after a new farmers’ party scored highly in Dutch elections.
Their blockades and pickets are exposing a clash between the EU’s drive to cut carbon dioxide emissions and its aim of becoming more self-sufficient in the production of food and other essentials following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Just five months before elections to the European Parliament, the revolt is fueling a narrative that the EU is riding roughshod over farmers, who are struggling to adapt to stringent environmental regulations amid an inflation shock.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s lieutenant, Jordan Bardella, blames “Macron’s Europe” for the farmers’ troubles. Le Pen herself says the EU needs to quit all free-trade deals and that her party would block any future agreements, such as with South American Mercosur countries, if it wins power.
Worryingly for French President Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders, opinion polls show that farmers’ grievances resonate with the public. An Elabe poll showed that 87 percent of French people supported the farmers’ cause and 73 percent of them considered the EU to be a handicap for farmers, not an asset.
COUNTRYSIDE VOICE
National governments are scrambling to address farmers’ concerns, with France and Germany both watering down proposals to end tax breaks on agricultural diesel. The European Commission also announced new measures on Wednesday.
However, the protests could amplify a rightward shift in the European Parliament and imperil the EU’s green agenda. Poll projections show that an “anti-climate policy action coalition” could be formed in the new legislature in June.
“The far right’s strategy is to Europeanize the conflict,” Teneo analyst Antonio Barroso said. “Farmers are a small group, but these parties think they can attract the whole rural vote by extension.”
Different political catalysts have spurred farmers from France to Romania into action.
In Germany, a week of protests against high fuel prices culminated last month in a rally of 10,000 farmers who gummed up central Berlin’s streets with their tractors and jeered at German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party, running high in the polls on a lackluster economy, tried to capitalize, dropping its usual opposition to subsidies and saying farmers demands should be met.
In March last year, discontent with climate and agriculture policy helped the new BBB political party to win regional elections in the Netherlands, the world’s second-biggest agricultural exporter.
Its list for June’s EU elections are to be led by Sander Smit, a former EU parliament adviser who wants to be “a voice of and for the countryside,” campaigning for an easing of EU restrictions on agricultural land use.
“The EU must start working again for citizens, farmers, gardeners, fishermen, for communities, families and entrepreneurs,” Smit, 38, said.
French unions such as the powerful FNSEA have brought discipline to the farmers rallies, avoiding the violence seen during the “yellow vest” protests that rocked France in Macron’s first term and are already winning concessions from the government.
However, unions say they cannot control who farmers vote for.
CHANGING WINDS
In France, support from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy means farmers, although politically conservative, were historically more pro-European than the average voter.
In the French 2022 presidential election, Le Pen did less well among farmers than in the rest of the population, while pro-European Macron outperformed, an Ifop/FNSEA poll showed.
However, some farmers say they are tempted to vote for Le Pen’s National Rally party in June, in protest of the EU’s climate drive, which they say crushes production and leaves space for global competitors.
“Europe is putting us on a drip to let us die silently,” Pierre Poma, a 66-year-old retired farmer in Montauban in southwest France, told reporters.
He joined National Rally a few years ago and ran for a parliamentary seat in 2022, garnering 40 percent of the votes compared with the 15 percent Le Pen’s party won in the same constituency in 2017.
Poma, who used to grow peaches, pears and apples, says he had to sell his house because he could not turn a profit. He blames red tape and the EU’s farm-to-fork strategy, which he abhors.
After visiting farmers’ motorway blockades in the past few days, he is confident that like-minded parties would be a force to reckon with in Brussels after June.
“Our group is growing, in Germany, in Hungary, elsewhere. It’s the end of a world, the end of the policies of the past,” Poma said.
Additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam,
Thomas Escritt in Berlin, Kate Abnett in Brussels and Anna Koper in Warsaw
Trying to force a partnership between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and Intel Corp would be a wildly complex ordeal. Already, the reported request from the Trump administration for TSMC to take a controlling stake in Intel’s US factories is facing valid questions about feasibility from all sides. Washington would likely not support a foreign company operating Intel’s domestic factories, Reuters reported — just look at how that is going over in the steel sector. Meanwhile, many in Taiwan are concerned about the company being forced to transfer its bleeding-edge tech capabilities and give up its strategic advantage. This is especially
US President Donald Trump’s second administration has gotten off to a fast start with a blizzard of initiatives focused on domestic commitments made during his campaign. His tariff-based approach to re-ordering global trade in a manner more favorable to the United States appears to be in its infancy, but the significant scale and scope are undeniable. That said, while China looms largest on the list of national security challenges, to date we have heard little from the administration, bar the 10 percent tariffs directed at China, on specific priorities vis-a-vis China. The Congressional hearings for President Trump’s cabinet have, so far,
For years, the use of insecure smart home appliances and other Internet-connected devices has resulted in personal data leaks. Many smart devices require users’ location, contact details or access to cameras and microphones to set up, which expose people’s personal information, but are unnecessary to use the product. As a result, data breaches and security incidents continue to emerge worldwide through smartphone apps, smart speakers, TVs, air fryers and robot vacuums. Last week, another major data breach was added to the list: Mars Hydro, a Chinese company that makes Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as LED grow lights and the
The US Department of State has removed the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence” in its updated Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, which instead iterates that “we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the Strait.” This shows a tougher stance rejecting China’s false claims of sovereignty over Taiwan. Since switching formal diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China in 1979, the US government has continually indicated that it “does not support Taiwan independence.” The phrase was removed in 2022
RSS