We spent a week with agricultural unions in France. Their demands are not what the mainstream media is reporting.
Montauban, France – Think of the image of French farming sold to the world. It is a bottle of wine, a wheel of cheese, and a sunlit village that looks exactly as it did in 1950.
It is a lifestyle brand.Now, picture the reality inside the cabin of a Fendt tractor parked on the A13 motorway outside Paris. The air smells of burning tires and diesel.
The driver is not looking at the sunset; he is looking at a bankruptcy notice on his phone. He is sleeping in his cab, eating cold sandwiches, while riot police watch from the overpass.This shift has a name: la fracture agricole (the agricultural fracture).
It is the sound of a social contract breaking. For decades, France promised its farmers protection in exchange for food security.
Now, farmers feel they are being liquidated to make room for imported beef and electric cars.
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