Le Figaro Bordeaux
Desperate situations call for desperate measures.
Hundreds of winegrowers marched through the streets of Bordeaux on Tuesday, December 6, to testify to their difficulties and seek state aid.
Among their main demands: the possibility of a premium for the uprooting of thousands of hectares of vines, now unprofitable, in order to make a living from their work.
In Gironde, the leading wine-growing department in France, small winegrowers are having more and more difficulty.
"
We produce far too much wine
", summarizes Aymerick Van Gelderen, winemaker in the Médoc for six years, within a forty-year-old estate.
"
Today, the Bordeaux appellation produces 500,000 hectoliters too many
", and the producers are unable to sell their wine.
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This uprooting premium of 10,000 euros per hectare would concern 15,000 hectares, ie a total of 150 million euros.
If implemented, it would help both winegrowers in difficulty but also retired farmers, whose incomes are generally very low.
Gaëlle Jean, organic winemaker in Sainte-Foy-la-Longue (Gironde), will soon take over the business from her parents, aged 70 and 63.
She wants to uproot about 10 hectares in order to be able to "
make a smaller structure for more quality and less quantity
", while replanting in place of the uprooted vines "
adapted crops, requiring little water
".
“Viticulture is dying in Bordeaux”
Advancing to the sound of tractors, the demonstration brought together several hundred people on Tuesday, including a good number of winegrowers, but also several local and national elected officials.
Signs display slogans such as "
No peasant = no landscape
", "
Abandoned viticulture, misery in Bordeaux
", "
Having so much good wine and not being able to eat bread
", or "
65 years old, no buyer , no retirement
.
So many alarm signals sent by the winegrowers to the State so that it comes to their aid.
Under a sign that reads “
Forgotten Agriculture Compromise
”, Jérôme Zaros, winegrower since 2005 in Entre-Deux-Mers, is particularly pessimistic.
“
If nothing happens, next year it's over, everything stops
”.
For him, “
viticulture is dying in Bordeaux
” and “
lives are in danger
”.
He affirms that several of his neighbors “
can no longer be paid for months already
”.
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The drop in exports, the vagaries of the weather, or even the “
Bordeaux bashing
”, decried by many winegrowers, are cited pell-mell.
"
We are still the ugly ducklings of French wine
", testifies Aymerick Van Gelderen, regretting that consumers are increasingly shying away from Bordeaux wine.
"
We are forced to downgrade our plots
", says Gaëlle Jean, because "
we sell our production better in French wine than labeled in Bordeaux
".
“150 million is far from insane”
Among the demonstrators, the RN deputy for Gironde, Grégoire de Fournas, himself at the head of a vineyard, came to support the angry winegrowers.
"
If we are not able to find 100 million euros to get out of this bad situation, there is really a problem
," sighs the elected official.
“
You can't even say that the market is down, because there is no longer a market.
Several winegrowers indeed say that the bulk wine they sell is currently purchased below cost price and that they therefore produce at a loss.
"
Most of our economic fabric is a wine-growing fabric
", testifies Joseph Verschuur, deputy mayor of Sainte-Foy-la-Longue.
Also denouncing the situation of overproduction faced by winegrowers, he would like the necessary transition to be “
financially supported
”, because “
winegrowers do not have the means to finance this alone
”.
For him, as for all the other elected officials from Entre-Deux-Mers present on Tuesday, “
150 million euros is far from insane
”.
A crisis unit soon to be set up
During this march of winegrowers and wine professionals, unprecedented in Bordeaux since 2004, the demonstrators notably passed in front of the Bordeaux Wine Interprofessional Council (CIVB).
The procession then hoisted a hanged man, symbolizing the death of their profession, and performed a symbolic minute of silence.
Before leaving, vines were placed in front of the door of the CIVB.
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Further on, the procession joined the regional hotel, where a meeting took place between a delegation of winegrowers and the president of New Aquitaine, Alain Rousset.
At the end of this exchange, the latter affirmed that the region “
will support the winegrowers in the fight
”, wishing the financing by the State of a “
real social plan
”.
Alain Rousset has also undertaken to involve winegrowers in future exchanges with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Received at length by the prefect of the region, Fabienne Buccio, the winegrowers obtained the creation of a crisis unit, to respond to urgent situations.
“
We should not dream that we would come out with a check for the uprooting
”, specifies Didier Cousiney, at the head of the collective at the origin of the mobilization.
For the deputy Renaissance Pascal Lavergne, this cell should however make it possible to "
find solutions avoiding definitive gestures
".
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