Headlines: the opening of the Paris Agricultural Show

Audio 06:19

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

For the third time since the start of his five-year term, Emmanuel Macron goes to meet an agricultural world that knows only the crisis. At the Agriculture Show, the Head of State will gladly sacrifice to tradition because " Macron wants to reassure the peasant world in crisis ", ensures "in the headlines" Le Figaro , the president is going to his " reconquest ", he intends to " make a bulwark " against the violence suffered by peasants. Which still hold a special place in the hearts of the French. According to an Odoxa survey for Le Figaro and France Info , 88% of them have a " good " or " very good " opinion of farmers, a real plebiscite which, from one year to the next, cannot be denied.

For if "the peasants are the eyes of the French guards and accounting of this great feeder chain from the soil to the plate and which, in France as elsewhere, touch something sacred, (they are today) weakened by the questioning of the CAP budget or Trump's threats to the wine industry , "said Le Figaro .

Crisis of the rural world, and trompe l'oeil of the Salon de l'Agriculture which sanctifies this moment of love of the fatherland for its peasants, before a return, very often, to despair.

" One day I hung myself ," says a 43-year-old cattle breeder on the front page of Liberation . “ It was in 2006, I had a normal life as a farmer (…) I spent nights doing accounting (bility), the mad cow crisis, hard work, family tensions. And then I ended up at the end of a rope ! Fabrice, his first name, was saved in extremis by a hunter who was passing by and who picked him up in time from his gallows.

As Liberation sums it up, the agricultural world “ has not been able to negotiate the turn of the century (…). It has suffered the full force of globalization and global trade, excessive competition between distributors and ever-increasing pressure on prices. Many of them took advantage of the boom in intensive industrial farming and did not want to see the irresistible rise, within a large part of the population, of a visceral rejection of pesticides and animal suffering , and an increasingly high quality requirement. As a result, the agricultural world found itself cut off from the urban world, even rejected, and it did not understand why ”…

In France again, it's done, one of the two reactors at the Fessenheim nuclear power plant was shut down definitively that night.

Being reminded that the second Fessenheim reactor will in turn be stopped definitively at the end of June next, not without a nostalgia all of lyricism, the local daily newspaper Les Actualités Nouvelles d'Alsace philosopher this morning on the resemblance which it discerns between " the universe of nuclear ”and“ the oldest mythology ”, because the end of“ sacred monsters ”is done“ in convulsions ”, he remarks. If taking sides between "for" and "against" the closure of Fessenheim, the "DNA" as Alsatians call this well-established newspaper in the area where, since 1977, this flagship throne in Majesty now fallen of Gaullian France, finds that the Fessenheim plant reveals the consequences of a " political damnation "!

Less poetic, more political, Liberation emphasizes that we witnessed last night an " act (which) marks the beginning of the transition to new energies " in France, " the oldest of the French power plants, inaugurated under Giscard, will therefore close under Macron's reign. A day of mourning for Fessenheim (…) A day of ashes ”for the national electricity group EDF.

But one day marking " a turning point in the country's energy policy, completes Libé. (…) Conversely, this Saturday will kick off the energy transition ”, of which this daily does not conceal the share of“ unknown ”, while retaining the“ symbol ”that represents the closure of the power plant Fessenheim nuclear power plant, which marks the transition " from atom to atomic ", formulated in Une Liberation.

Presidential election, first round, today in Togo. If no candidate crosses the 50% mark, there will be a second round. Theoretically…:

This is what is provided for in the new Togolese Constitution, reformed last year. The presidential election in Togo? On this polling day, we will be careful not to report what the French press writes.

Note however this reminder signed Liberation : “ two years ago, the regime had been surprised by a vast protest movement launched on the initiative of the young and radical National Pan-African Party. (…) But a mixture of repression and negotiations managed to put out the fire ”.

But that was before. And today, the vote will take place without the presence of the observation mission of the Church, " Justice and Peace ", which has been " prohibited ", but also of the European Union, which has " not was asked, "Libération tip. " As for the publication of the polling station by polling station results, an opposition request which would make it possible to compare the scores posted on the 9,389 doors of the polling places with those compiled by the authorities, it was sharply refused " , completes this daily.

Reportage of the newspaper Le Figaro in Lomé, capital of Togo, where " it floats in the air a mixture of excitement, worry and resilience ", and where the special correspondent of this daily has notably encountered a Nana Benz " disillusioned "or a resident" without emotion ". But beyond the clichés about Togo, Le Figaro also points to an “ improvement in the trompe-l'oeil economy for many experts, who point to the persistent economic difficulties of the population, of which 69% still live below the threshold poverty, according to a report by the World Bank "while Togo is" in 130th place out of 180 in the Transparency International ranking of the most corrupt countries. Under these circumstances, many people admit that they will not vote and even refuse to give their opinion for fear of reprisals, "the newspaper said.

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• Newspaper
• Agriculture and Fisheries
• Emmanuel Macron