Field Notes - When the land pushes back

Turns out this photo is a fake, by the way... Even though if it did fool the folks at Forbes magazine, but... that's OK. It says what I want to say, AI or not. It's a picture that "shows" French farmers protesting in Paris. They are there, by the way - as I type - with tractors and trailers, and even sheep, lining the grand Avenues and Boulevards of the Nations capital, hosing down Government buildings with the occasional muck-spreader. When French farmers are unhappy, they quite literally, go to town.

Vanessa and I have seen a lot of these agricultural expressions of deep discontent. We live in rural France, after all, where over the past three years, French farmers haven’t been protesting constantly, but they have been returning to protest repeatedly - blocking roads, setting hay fires, and turning village name signs upside down so we have to do this weird head-tilt when we get a bit lost.

We are all aware that the French generally love a moan. The French 5th Republic, enjoys excellent and worthy freedoms, set out by a variety of post-revolution doctrines like the 1789 "Declaration of the Rights of Man", which has significant constitutional value in France. In other words, to speak, to gather and to object, are not only considered OK legally, they are considered as fundamental civic duties. So there...

You see, there is a subtle but crucial distinction with French protests.. it is considered very much as a participation in democracy, not an opposition to it. So when our farmers block roads, or head off to Toulouse to set fire to something, the question the French ask is not "Why are they protesting again..?" It is more "What has reached breaking point for those poor fellows this time?" This framing matters a lot, in France.

In the UK, where I am from, there is an "ideal" sort of protest. It's very British if you think about it.. Protests are tolerated by the Brits, as long as they stay small, stay quiet and stay mostly out of the way. They are allowed a signature chant - usually a chubby bloke with a bull horn, shouting "What do we want"? - with the crowd meekly calling back "slightly cheaper fuel would be lovely"...

In France, protests have a much more solid feel to them. They have to be seen, be heard and cause massive inconvenience. There is an absolute, moral legitimacy around marching down the street here in Gaul. That is not to say they are in any way above the law, because they are most certainly not. But there is an empathy here, that stops the police form over-reacting. They stand back and stand by. The public wait patiently for the cows to navigate the roundabout. There is a sense of solidarity and not the "Us and Them" that we see so often in societies that are more polarised, like the US or Iran.

What lingers, once the tractors return home and the streets are washed clean, is not the disruption but the question beneath it. Protests like these aren’t really about fuel prices, trade deals, or paperwork — at least not only. They’re about visibility. About being recognised as part of the story, not as an annoying or inconvenient footnote.

French farmers protest because their work is inseparable from place. From weather. From consequence. When systems become too abstract, too distant, they return to the only language that still feels truthful — presence.

Vive la différence...