© Fred Scheiber/Sipa
Following almost two weeks of intensive protests, the black smoke from huge tire fires is clearing as transport routes open again in Occitanie, France, where
farmers had blocked roads, motorways, and railway lines with piles of manure, trash and hundreds of tractors. With Toulouse - France's 4th-largest city - and other cities at times almost completely blockaded, the impact was felt throughout southwestern France, and likened to a 'civil war'.
Already feeling the downward pressure of low prices for their products, local farmers were up in arms over re-zoning plans that would see them effectively made redundant because their farms would no longer be entitled to EU subsidies. But the crisis appears to have been temporarily solved after
French Minister of Agriculture committed Thursday to leaving intact subsidies for most of the affected communes in Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine.
Rural
colere against Paris and Brussels is sure to flare up again soon because President Macron
hinted just last month that he is willing to consider a complete overhaul of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, something French governments have until now always strongly defended because France's rural communities are particularly dependent on EU subsidies.
French national media largely ignored the farmers' protests - after all, so long as peripheral matters don't directly impact Paris, then
tant pis - although they did sit up and take notice when the siege of Toulouse became
really serious earlier this week. In the meantime, a number of other protests across France in the last ten days or so have contributed to a pronounced sense of national gloom.
Comment: It's a sign of internal decay and skewed priorities when tax cuts for corporations take precedence over teachers. What kind of generation will be raised if today's children are receiving a completely substandard education? See also: