Matthieu Falcone is a writer. Latest work published:
The king is naked
(Albin Michel, 2024).
You have to read it to believe it: “
We are providing resources to farmers to support them in transitions and to improve their competitiveness
,” says Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture.
You have to read what you read carefully.
However, what we understand here is that transitions lead and that the government's only means of action is to support transitions and improve competitiveness, which goes without saying.
In reality, everything goes without saying, in neoliberal society as we know it and as we endure it.
The French Minister of Agriculture's sole role, his sole road map, is to put oil in the cogs, so that the great capitalist machinery functions as best as possible, that is to say without clash for itself.
So here's where we've come to.
The human being is nothing more than a cog, a tool in the service of the great capitalist production machine.
This is not new but each crisis makes us aware of it a little more.
However, the multiplication of crises is the way capitalism works, as Marx had already explained.
With each crisis that occurs, emissaries of the State are dispatched to explain to the toolmen that they must adapt, bend their backs a little more, for the good of humanity.
For the sake of the production of commodities, in reality, this having become an end since it is the commodity which imposes its law;
since the commodity has been, in a certain way, deified.
In this regard, reading
La société du spectacle
by Guy Debord is still relevant.
We can argue that the “yellow vest” crisis was born from the refusal to increase the price of fuel.
That that of the Red Bonnets was born from a tax imposed on the distance traveled.
That the one which is emerging is the fruit of the ban on certain phytosanitary products and the increase in the price of agricultural fuel.
Each time, it involves price increases or new administrative standards.
In reality, what lies behind it is always the impotence of the State which only suffers from market pressures.
Le premier des commandements du Marché est « marche ou crève ». Et plus souvent crève que marche, pour nos agriculteurs français.
Matthieu FalconeCela fait longtemps que le Marché dirige la production des agriculteurs. Exeunt les paysans, les hommes de la terre, les hommes du pays, remplacés par les agriculteurs qui ne sont plus que la force de production de marchandises, peu importent lesquelles. Il faut produire ; entrer dans la compétition. Le premier des commandements du Marché est «marche ou crève». Et plus souvent crève que marche, pour nos agriculteurs français. Deux romans magnifiques ont évoqué ces drames au cours des dernières années.
D'abord Sérotonine de Michel Houellebecq en 2019, qui fait prononcer ces paroles fulgurantes à son narrateur : «Le nombre d'agriculteurs a énormément baissé depuis cinquante ans en France, mais il n'a pas encore suffisamment baissé. Il faut encore le diviser par deux ou trois pour arriver aux standards européens […] Une fois qu'on sera aux standards européens, on n'aura toujours pas gagné, on sera même au seuil de la défaite définitive, parce que là on sera vraiment en contact avec le marché mondial, et la bataille de la production mondiale on ne la gagnera pas. […] Bref, ce qui se passe en ce moment avec l'agriculture en France, c'est un énorme plan social, le plus gros plan social à l'œuvre à l'heure actuelle, mais c'est un plan social secret, invisible, où les gens disparaissent individuellement, dans leur coin, sans jamais donner matière à un sujet pour BFM.» Ensuite, Pleine terre de Corinne Royer en 2021 qui romance l'histoire vraie d'un agriculteur acculé puis traqué comme un criminel par l'administration.
Malgré cela, rien ne change. Plus exactement, tout accélère, selon le principe intangible du capitalisme dont la croissance verte est l'un des nouveaux masques, pour le meilleur et surtout pour le pire, à en croire le travail colossal d'Hélène Tordjman, économiste et universitaire, publié en 2021 sous le titre La croissance verte contre la nature.
C'est ainsi que les agriculteurs sont sacrifiés sur l'autel de la rentabilité, de la concurrence, de la performance, les trois vertus théologales du Marché dont Bruxelles est le Vatican et Marc Fesneau le vicaire.
Matthieu FalconeOn ne peut faire autrement, nous dit-on. Il faut croître et produire. Coûte que coûte. Or la compétition est sans fin comme l'extension du domaine du capital est infinie. On voudrait nous faire croire que le monde n'a pas plus de limites que notre hubris. Que par conséquent, il est logique d'écraser l'homme qui se mettrait en travers du chemin du progrès. Que les chars de la croissance ne peuvent pas faire dans le détail, qu'il est normal que leurs chenilles aplanissent tout.
The 20th century was that of the war of two ideologies sharing the same materialist root: capitalism against communism.
The first won at the expense of the second – which had no difficulty in swapping its clothes while keeping the same philosophical foundation, continuing to draw on the same roots, the metamorphosis of Russia and China illustrate this well .
This victory was achieved to the detriment of humanity and the nature it inhabits, which it reduced to a market value, an exchange value, also reducing itself (humanity) to it. , since participating
by nature
in nature.
This is how farmers are sacrificed on the altar of profitability, competition, performance, the three theological virtues of the market of which Brussels is the Vatican and the Ministry of Agriculture the vicar.
Today, some of them are protesting.
Will we blindly crush those who dare to say "
non serviam
", as was done with the "yellow vests" or will we grant them a reprieve by making them believe that they have won a victory, which will not be still only a Pyrrhic victory?
Because, if no despair is allowed, it is a safe bet that it is not the new government which will radically reverse the philosophical outlook on the human species.
While some common sense measures could be taken to start, in order to protect our agriculture as we have done with our culture recognized as a national specificity.
Thus, leaving the CAP to invent a National Agricultural Policy.
This would be a first step to take back the destiny of our country and stop submitting to the inflexible law of Brussels where the only heart that beats is the mechanical one of the market.