The tractors have lifted their blockades of Paris and other major French cities, and the farmers have made their way home.
Their two-week nationwide protest movement was suspended on Friday, 2 February, after Emmanuel Macron’s government announced a series of measures – financial and administrative – to alleviate the suffering, the anger and the despair of the country’s agricultural sector.
One of the most memorable images of the farmers’ protest was of a priest blessing each tractor in a <a href="https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/sondage-9-francais-sur-10-soutiennent-le-mouvement-des-agriculteurs"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">large convoy</mark></a> as it passed through his village. Many other figures in the Catholic church demonstrated their solidarity with the farmers.
The clergy’s camaraderie for the farmers stretched from Bordeaux in the south to Brittany in the north, underscoring the strong bonds between the Church and the land.
Whether the government has permanently placated the farmers, or simply brought themselves a temporary reprieve remains to be seen. What’s certain is that Macron and his ministers were unnerved by the spontaneous uprising, which began in the south of the country (in the city of Toulouse) and spread rapidly.
The farmers had the overwhelming support of their compatriots; one <a href="https://www.publicsenat.fr/actualites/societe/sondage-9-francais-sur-10-soutiennent-le-mouvement-des-agriculteurs"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">poll</mark></a> put it at 89 per cent of the country, among whom were the police and the Church; that may have been another reason why President Macron – a man with a reputation for procrastinating - responded with such alacrity: the farmers had God and (PC) Plod on their side.
The bishops of Languedoc-Roussillon (Nîmes, Perpignan, Carcassonne and Narbonne) and the archbishop of Montpellier issued a joint <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/agriculture/crise-agricole/leglise-catholique-solidaire-et-attentive-a-la-colere-des-agriculteurs-df06b2f0-be95-11ee-8a7d-fa3ec2db0626"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">statement</mark></a>, in which they stated: "We do not understand why there are double standards and that certain imported products are exempt from the administrative, health and economic constraints imposed on you."
This was a reference to one of the farmers’ chief grievances: that they are held to rigorous agricultural standards, while countries that import livestock and cereal into Europe (notable from Ukraine and South America) are not.
The bishops’ joint statement praised the “nobility” of the farming profession, and called on the government to recognise the “vital nature” of their work.
Mgr Laurent Camiade, the bishop of Cahors, <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/agriculture/crise-agricole/leglise-catholique-solidaire-et-attentive-a-la-colere-des-agriculteurs-df06b2f0-be95-11ee-8a7d-fa3ec2db0626"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">proclaimed</mark></a>: “Farmers, we love you!” He then called on “Christians and all people of goodwill to show our friendship, understanding, solidarity and compassion” to the farming community. This, he said, could be most effectively achieved by buying local.
Father Éric Lorinet, the diocesan administrator of Valence – the new bishop of the southern city, Mgr François Durand, will be ordained next month – issued a <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/agriculture/crise-agricole/leglise-catholique-solidaire-et-attentive-a-la-colere-des-agriculteurs-df06b2f0-be95-11ee-8a7d-fa3ec2db0626"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">message of support</mark></a><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"> </mark>that drew on his first-hand experience of the farmers’ plight:
“Many farmers are Christians,” he said, noting that when he prayed with some of them, they “told him of their weariness and exhaustion, feeling abandoned and no longer able to give meaning to the crazy amount of time they devote to their work”.
Father Lorinet said that for some the “profound distress” of their situation had led them to end their lives. On average, 180 French farmers <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/haute-garonne/toulouse/temoignage-colere-des-agriculteurs-des-suicides-il-y-en-a-plusieurs-chaque-jour-des-mannequins-pendus-symboliquement-sous-les-ponts-des-points-de-blocage-2912267.html"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">take their own lives each year</mark></a>.
The links between the Church and France’s farmers go back centuries and were strengthened during the Revolution, or more precisely, the “Terror” of 1793-94.
While the initial uprising in 1789 was driven by desperate and starving peasants, it was hijacked by the bourgeois – led by the lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Resistance to these radical secularists in the National Convention was centred in the Vendée, in western France, and led by Catholic Royalists. The Revolutionaries crushed this counter-revolution without pity, killing around 200,000 people, many defenceless peasants who had not borne arms.
What some French historians have termed a “genocide” has not been forgotten; it is why provincial France still harbours a deep mistrust of Paris and its ruling elite.
“We mustn't forget the weight of the Christian matrix in these agricultural worlds,” <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/lot/cahors/agriculteurs-on-vous-aime-l-eglise-apporte-son-soutien-a-un-milieu-agricole-rural-toujours-impregne-de-l-influence-catholique-2916186.html"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">declared</mark></a> François Purseigle, professor of sociology at the Institut National Polytechnique in Toulouse. “Even if farmers are less observant today than they were in the past, they still go to Mass more often than other people.”
The decline of Catholicism in France runs parallel to the shrinking of the country's agricultural sector. In 1952, 42 per cent of farmers <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/lot/cahors/agriculteurs-on-vous-aime-l-eglise-apporte-son-soutien-a-un-milieu-agricole-rural-toujours-impregne-de-l-influence-catholique-2916186.html"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">went to Mass</mark></a>, compared with 27 per cent of French population as a whole. In 1973, church attendance for farmers was 17 per cent and 13 per cent for the population at large. Today, 6 per cent of farmers are regular church goes as opposed to 4 per cent of the general population.
In the same period the number of farms in France has fallen from 2.3 million to 389,000. The <a href="https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/en-france-le-nombre-des-agriculteurs-se-reduit-et-la-moyenne-d-age-s-eleve-952768.html"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">average age</mark></a> of a farmer in France is 51. The young don’t seem that keen to follow their parents and grandparents into an industry that demands so many hours for so little reward. The same applies to wine growers.
“People who have always worked in the wine industry are considering early retirement, and young professionals are thinking of changing careers,” <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/economie/agriculture/crise-agricole/leglise-catholique-solidaire-et-attentive-a-la-colere-des-agriculteurs-df06b2f0-be95-11ee-8a7d-fa3ec2db0626">said</a> </mark>Archbishop Jean-Paul James of Bordeaux last week. “All this has an impact on the life of the Department [France is divided into 13 administrative regions, which are sub-divided into 96 <em>Departements</em>] and for us Catholics of our diocese. Today, solidarity and fraternity are more important than ever.”
That applies not just to Catholics and to farmers, but to everyone struggling to survive in <em>la France Profonde</em> – that "Deep France" comprised of provincial towns, rural and village life that is underscored by a profound Frenchness. <br><br><em>Photo: Farmers driving their tractors as part of nationwide protests called by several farmers' unions over pay, tax and regulations, Rennes, western France,</em> <em>1 February 2024.(Photo by SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>
