‘The world is changing too fast for us’: organic farmers on urgency of French protests
GuardianJAN 2024
Paris: Farmers Block Motorways With Tractor Barricades as 'Siege' Begins
Image copyright: Remon Haazen/Getty Images News via Getty Images
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Echoing the peasant wars of the Middle Ages, farmers in Europe are now staging mass demonstrations against the crumbling postwar European power structures that have shifted onto their own food suppliers the burdens of sustaining the prolonged agony of the neoliberal US world empire. Yet, mainstream media have downplayed this continent-wide farming revolution as a minor development — as if they have been instructed what and what not to cover.
Pro-establishment narrative
Farmers have reasons to protest, but the far-right has fueled their outrage against the EU with false claims to attract new voters in the run-up to European elections this summer, given that only one-quarter of the French farming community cast a far-right vote in the past presidential elections. Meanwhile, the French government has been left with a delicate balance to walk as it must meet their demands to prevent another volatile chapter in the "Gilets Jaunes" yellow vests movement.