Maxime Tandonnet notably published
André Tardieu.
The misunderstood
(Perrin, 2019) and
Georges Bidault: from the Resistance to French Algeria
(Perrin, 2022).
He teaches foreigners and nationality law at the University of Paris XII.
To discover
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Each year, the Agricultural Show establishes itself as a popular event attended by families from all walks of life but also as a major political event, particularly on the eve of elections.
The highly publicized trip of the Head of State to the Porte de Versailles took on a ritual dimension every February.
The image of Epinal of Jacques Chirac, the “friendly president”, flattering the
“cows' ass”
and sharing with peasants a plate of charcuterie and a glass of red wine, remains engraved in the memory of the French.
The time devoted to the Agricultural Show is seen by political leaders as a lever for popularity polls.
On the other hand, an Agricultural Show that goes wrong can be disastrous for the presidential image.
The anger of farmers in 2016 against François Hollande, booed, whistled and insulted, marked a stage in the descent into hell of a five-year term.
At a time when political life is sinking ever further into the logic of a great narcissistic and above-ground spectacle, it is absolutely imperative to show up on this day in communion with the nation and the deep country that the agricultural profession embodies.
The Agricultural Show owes its tremendous success to a collective reminiscence of 1600 years of history of a predominantly peasant and rural nation.
Until the industrial revolution of the 19th century, 80 to 90% of the population lived off the produce of the land.
And the share of farmers in the working population still exceeded 40% on the eve of the Second World War.
Hence the phenomenal importance of the Agricultural Show for French presidents who all dream of inscribing their name in the continuity of the “national romance”.
It is a strong moment of the year which allows them to take root in an illusion of terroir, just like the multiple memorial ceremonies and other pantheonizations.
This is why, in the logic of a political life now reduced to being, essentially, only a grandiloquent theater, it is fundamental to appease the minds of the agricultural world before the annual high mass in February at the Porte de Versailles.
On the eve of the European elections which present themselves in unfavorable conditions for the ruling majority, this image imperative is particularly crucial.
However, this sublimation of the peasant world, in the heart of the Parisian metropolis, is the logic of an inverted mirror.
The Agricultural Show gives a happy, sanitized and opulent image of rural life and the agricultural profession, but also misleading.
It serves to mask the tragedy of the agricultural world which is expressed throughout Europe in the form of demonstrations and more particularly in France, won since the beginning of the year by a virulent protest movement.
The announcements by Gabriel Attal, the Prime Minister, which responded to the most immediate demands of agricultural organizations, for example on the financing of additional state aid or the suspension of new constraints linked to environmental protection (concerning the use of pesticides in particular), have facilitated the lifting of roadblocks on the highways.
The profession has one suicide per day from operators driven to despair by debts they cannot repay.
Maxime Tandonnet
These one-off measures did not, however, have the ambition to respond to the deep malaise of a profession which accumulates difficulties and frustrations.
The number of farms continues to collapse thanks to a concentration of agricultural property.
There will only be 400,000 in 2024 compared to 800,000 in 1988, a third of operators being over 60 years old.
The average income of operators is lower than the minimum wage according to INSEE: €1,475 gross, taking into account profound inequalities.
18% live below the poverty line and many of them, particularly small breeders, live on the margins of society, deprived of vacations and weekends, and combine the constraints of rural life for access to care or the schooling of their children.
Accused of being polluters by certain environmental movements, they do not feel recognized in their mission of maintaining the countryside and its landscapes.
The profession has one suicide per day from operators driven to despair by debts they cannot repay.
So, always with the perspective of saving their passage to the 2024 agricultural show - a showcase which contrasts with the reality of a profession - and defusing the anger which could be expressed there, the leaders in power are taking initiatives expressing a intention to go beyond the stage of one-off announcements, and, from now on, to focus in depth on the future of the farming profession.
They talk about restoring
“agricultural sovereignty”
and the head of state himself organizes “a major debate” on the model of that which accompanied the end of the “yellow vests” crisis.
However, French policy's room for maneuver is now reduced on this issue (as on many others).
The future of agriculture largely depends on the level of the European Union.
The common agricultural policy (CAP) provides on average 74% of farmers' income in the form of subsidies (with strong inequalities: 250% for cattle breeding and 4% for horticulture).
The major issues of the future that concern the profession are decided at the European level, in a context where essential decisions escape national sovereignty: the opening of the European market to Ukraine, free trade negotiations with Mercosur (Common Market of South America), the “green pact” deemed to ultimately impose additional environmental constraints on farmers.
Therefore, isn't the first duty of any political leader (current or future) to start by telling the truth to the agricultural world (about what is possible and what is no longer possible), rather than trying to seduce him with emblematic gestures or words and illusory perspectives, in a tense electoral context, and placed on the popular but chimerical Agricultural Show?