LDo the vigorous and persistent protests of farmers, in France as in other member states of the European Union (EU), indicate yet another sectoral crisis, linked to a persistent and traditional archaism? Nothing could be further from the truth, because these demonstrations testify, on the contrary, to a crisis of modernity which has disrupted the complementary relationships between agriculture and a macroeconomic regime today based on international competition, conceived as an indispensable vector of progress. After the roundabouts occupied by the “yellow vests”, the fires during recurring urban revolts, it is the turn of the tractors to block the highways. So many social movements intend to signal to governments the impossibility of a decent life for social groups marginalized by the withdrawal of the directing role of public power in the face of globalization processes.
The principle of competition moves silently at first, then it asserts itself as deregulation extends from products and services to capital and labor. The collective institutions, which yesterday governed the high growth regime, are being eroded by reforms which aim to individualize remuneration based on performance, including in increasingly distant markets.
As such, the successive transformations of the common agricultural policy (CAP) since 1992, the year of the first major reform of the principles of market regulation, follow a path parallel to that of labor law: farmers and employees see their income depend more and more on markets, and no longer on professional agreements or collective agreements. An additional step was taken with the Marrakech agreement in 1994, within the framework of commercial multilateralism, since it brought agriculture into the game of globalization.
The breakup of the 1990s
This general movement did not succeed in restoring the initial compromise of European construction, on the growth of labor productivity favorable to productive investment, which had made it possible to improve the standard of living through the fall in the prices of goods. food, to build extensive social coverage, according to a virtuous circle that has now disappeared.
In terms of agriculture, this rupture that began in the 1990s called into question the very foundations of household food security, which were based, at the end of the 1950s, on growth in production and labor productivity, and on a favorable food cost. Four million people are today in a situation of food insecurity in France.
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