Farmers are at a crossroads in France, as delays to CAP payments and low commodity prices have created a wave of hardship and discontent.
Will the far right pick up votes on the back of this?
“Brexit marks the return of nations,” Marine Le Pen has declared. That soundbite faces its test this Sunday as the first round of voting in the French presidential race approaches – against the background of a swing towards nationalism, Euro-scepticism, and far-right anti-immigration rhetoric.
Le Pen has been neck and neck with centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron for months, but a late surge to third place by Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, a leftist opponent of European integration, means Euro-scepticism and the prospect of a ‘Frexit’ will be staying on the agenda, even if the chances of either Melenchon or Fillon making it to the second round two weeks from now look slim.
Net farm incomes average about €350 a month, according to some French commentators – far below the official poverty line of €800. That malaise was what drove tillage farmer Jacques Ortin to cut the word ‘HELP’ into a field, so that the message would be visible from the flight path into Paris’s Orly airport.
Le Pen has moderate support among French farmers and their workers, 35% of whom said in a February poll that they intended to vote for her.
That’s ten points ahead of her support among the public at large, but lags well behind her following among so-called ‘blue collar’ workers, which the same poll put at 44% – blunted, perhaps, by Le Pen’s Euro-scepticism.
Her farm policy is the same as her economic policy – protectionism. That stance drew the ire of France’s Minister for Agriculture Stephane Le Foll, who asked what the Front National leader planned to do with France’s spare six or seven million litres of milk.
However, the EU has not endeared itself to French farmers with lengthy delays to CAP payments coming at the same time as new rules requiring greener farming practices.
Francois Fillon made ‘hay’ with this, pledging to roll back environmental rules he said were restricting French farmers, as has Le Pen.
While Fillon and Le Pen have pledged to confiscate the EU’s environment stick, Emmanuel Macron is promising more carrot – in the form of a credit line worth €5 billion for green farming projects. He is also proposing to cut taxes on low earners, which would include many involved in farming.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, who pipped Fillon in recent weeks, is a distant third to Le Pen and Macron. He also wants to leave the EU. Like Le Pen, he rejects international free-trade agreements. Unlike Le Pen, he wants to reduce human impact on the environment and move to green energy instead of nuclear power.
In February, Macron and Fillon had the support of 20% of farmers. In spite of rough receptions for both at an agricultural fair last month – Macron was jeered, Fillon was egged – it’s still possible Macron would come out on top for support among farmers.
In what looks like the most likely second-round scenario, which would see Macron and Le Pen face off, Macron would be more likely to pick up farm votes based on Fillon’s voters. They might be fed up with the direction of the Common Agricultural Policy, but they’re probably not quite fed up enough for Frexit – just yet.
Meanwhile, a 2% sliver of socialist farmers said they would vote for Melenchon in February. They might be Euro-sceptic, but they are unlikely to transfer to the far-right Le Pen in the last round.
French cuisine and wine are deeply important to the French national psyche and self-image, and there will be sympathy for the plight of farmers among voters at large. European agricultural policy defines their lives, and Europe is the defining issue of this election.