He did not expect a triumphal procession. But that it was about to be a hell of a ride? Emmanuel Macron opened the Salon de l’agriculture, France’s annual agricultural trade fair at the Porte de Versailles, in Paris over the weekend, and the appearance almost turned into a total disaster. For a while there was even a threat that the president would have to cancel his obligatory visit, harassed by angry farmers. The vehemence of the discontent surprised the organizers at the Élysée, because Macron had, after all, been very accommodating to farmers in recent weeks with a long series of concessions – not least in order to calm people’s minds before the start of the agricultural fair, if possible. But that obviously wasn’t enough.
300 to 500 angry farmers had gained access to the exhibition grounds before the gates opened and fought with the security forces, creating unparalleled chaos. There were scuffles, whistles and loud chants for the president to run away or resign immediately. But Macron, who skipped the G-7 summit in Kiev for this important political date in the national calendar year, did not allow himself to be chased away. In the end he was supposed to stay for thirteen hours, debate, collect. He proved once again that he likes things to be “musclé”, as the French say, when things are energetic and the confrontation is tough. He then takes off his jacket and switches to colloquial language, calls people on a first-name basis, and sometimes says to a critical citizen who rudely interrupts him: “Stop that crap!”
Chirac was good at the number, but with Macron it seemed artificial
The Coordination Rurale union was particularly energetic. She is close to Marine Le Pen’s extreme right-wing Rassemblement National, and the farmers’ anger against the president and his government cannot be virulent enough so shortly before the European elections in June. Le Pen’s young loyalist and party president, Jordan Bardella, began his visit to the salon on Sunday – 48 hours were planned, almost in one go. It was said from Bardella’s entourage that they secretly hoped that Gabriel Attal, the new Prime Minister of France, would stop by at the same time so that the popularity of both could be judged by the volume of applause and whistles. The trade fair is considered the ideal stage for political exchanges, a kind of reality check.
During the salon, the Parisian political establishment encounters the “Monde rural”, the rural world, the other France far away from the metropolis. It is, first and foremost, a mood test for presidents who are keen to bolster their sudden closeness to this other France by patting cows’ butts. Jacques Chirac, president from 1995 to 2007, did the number particularly well; he didn’t have to bend too much. With Macron it seems fake.
When chaos broke out, Macron stayed at the fair – for 13 hours
His style has always been a better fit for the business and banking world, no matter how hard he tries to counteract that impression. The Sunday newspaper La Tribune Dimanche is now reporting that the president is trying to compensate for this lack of proximity to rural France by making 37-year-old Valérie Hayer the top candidate of his Renaissance party for the European elections: Hayer is the group leader of the centrist group Renew Europe in the European Parliament – but above all is she is also the daughter and granddaughter of farmers from Mayenne. The French media have been waiting for the announcement of this personality for months. The experience at the salon may have confirmed Macron’s intentions.
But even for the Lepenists, the concerned farmers are at most a potentially new group of voters whose favor they still have to win. So far, French farmers have tended to lean towards the Gaullist, bourgeois right. These certainties have been changing over the last few years. In any case, Le Pen calculates that her strategy of “normalization” could help the party appeal to the farmers. That’s not certain, but it’s no longer unlikely either.
This is also why it was not an option for Emmanuel Macron to leave the salon through the back door when chaos broke out. Instead, he promised the farmers that he would ensure that the food industry and supermarket chains would soon have to pay minimum prices for their goods so that they would also have a secure livelihood. That would be a revolution. And Macron would like to have a debate on these issues with Marine Le Pen so that their “stupidities” can be seriously discussed, as he called it. It should probably be “musclé”.