The farmers standing with their arms crossed outside a sheep barn in rural Brittany were absolutely furious, completely en colère. For a visiting centrist politician, that made for an earful. For Europe’s far right, it has provided an opening.
In recent months, angry agricultural workers have rolled their tractors into Paris and other cities across Europe, blocking roads, spraying manure and setting things on fire. Farmers are mad about high costs and low prices, about the prospect of free trade deals, about the constraints of climate regulations, about what they say is a failure of political elites to understand what it means to grow wheat or raise sheep.
Their revolt is reshaping European policy — officials who previously promised to put the environment first and lead the world in a green transition have scrambled to walk back some of their own rules.
And in a year of key elections in both Europe and the United States, the farmer uprising may foretell a sharp right shift.
The European far right is skillfully seizing the moment, promising an agricultural overhaul and a chance to stick it to the city slickers. By inserting themselves into the farm fight, far-right figures have the potential to broaden their appeal. They can also continue to rail against elites and make the case for nationalism, as symbolized by salt-of-the-earth farmers.
Farmers using their political capital, as usual, to make things worse for literally everyone, themselves included.
Basically yeah. Godforbid that a third world country can finally make some money selling food to the first world, no no that can’t happen. Better use money to subsidise their production and keep food prices high for everyone.
Every country should try to produce enough food to feed themselves. It provides stability to the country.
Stability to do what?
With all the Jeff Taylor farmers’ revolt garbage that get pushed at my father on Youtube (even though the content he actually chooses has never been like that), I was expecting this to happen for a while now. We’re not in Europe ourselves, but the media onslaught by certain interests has clearly done its job.
New noun unlocked: farm right.
Definition: Right-wing farmers who won’t adapt or die.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In recent months, angry agricultural workers have rolled their tractors into Paris and other cities across Europe, blocking roads, spraying manure and setting things on fire.
Farmers are mad about high costs and low prices, about the prospect of free trade deals, about the constraints of climate regulations, about what they say is a failure of political elites to understand what it means to grow wheat or raise sheep.
AfD politicians joined the farmer protests in the hope of bolstering their position as the second-strongest party in German polls ahead of key regional elections in the fall.
The Brittany farmers had plenty to vent about when Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a French member of the European Parliament from President Emmanuel Macron’s political family, stopped by the sheep farm on a Monday morning in March to share a simple meal at a long barn table and listen to complaints.
He has since promised tens of millions of euros in aid and tax breaks, scrapped plans to reduce subsidies on the diesel used in trucks and farm machinery, and relaxed national restrictions on pesticides, among other concessions.
Grégoire de Fournas, a Le Pen ally who was briefly suspended from the National Assembly in 2022 for shouting “back to Africa” as a Black colleague spoke, predicted a new day for conservative politics in France and across Europe.
The original article contains 1,399 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
