Paris (AFP)

The ideal Charolais cow, muse in the immaculate dress of the Salon de l'Agriculture, arrived on Friday at Porte de Versailles in Paris to defend the reputation of Charolais breeding and the farmers who support it, confronted like their colleagues from all regions with a perilous economic situation.

Leaving at 5:00 am from the small mountains of Cours-la-Ville (Rhône), Idéale, a ton, made its appearance a little before noon, under the lenses of multiple cameras and cameras came to immortalize it from all angles.

The former president Jacques Chirac, a figure at the fair who pays him a tribute in photos this year, would certainly have appreciated as a connoisseur the straight, broad and muscular back of this beautiful beast of 1,000 kilos, worthy representative of the first meat breed in France (Approximately 1.6 million heads).

His breeder once again defended the income of breeders on Friday, endangered in particular by the price war waged by mass retail chains, and that the Food law, which came into force in early 2019, failed to pacify.

"We want to transmit this profession to future generations. For that, our production must be remunerated at a fair price", he declared to a group of journalists at the very moment when the Minister of Agriculture entered the scene. Didier Guillaume, come to greet "the salon mascot".

- Consumer responsibility -

"The number one problem is the income of breeders. Today the account is not there yet, they must be remunerated at their fair value and live decently," recognized the minister.

Other animals took their marks on Friday at the same time as Idéale: among them, a few dozen meters from the star cow, two beautiful sheep of the Blue Maine breed, under the eyes of their breeder, Geoffrey Veber, 32 years old , straight from the region of Verdun (Meuse).

As an echo to Mr. Goujat's speech, he explained that his brothers, like him, if they make a living from their mother's exploitation, all have outside work to guarantee a decent income.

"We keep that for the family patrimony and out of passion," he explains, making the zero sign with his thumb and forefinger when asked about the income he has left once the expenses have been deducted.

Among the levers to guarantee this income: the budget of the common agricultural policy (CAP), in negotiations in Brussels, for which President Macron "is fighting tooth and nail", assured the Minister. "He left for Brussels with an objective, the maintenance of the CAP budget," assured Guillaume, "because we know very well that if the CAP budget were to decrease beyond the departure of the British , (...) it would be a problem. It would be a problem for the resilience of our agriculture, it would be a problem for direct aid to farmers, to enable them to live, and it would be a real problem for the installation of young people, a real problem for the agro-ecological transition ".

"This is a big issue, which will condition the evolution of our prices", reacted Mr. Goujat, who also calls on consumers: "when we choose to buy this or that piece of meat, such or such price , such or such origin, we also condition the breeding and agriculture that we want in our territories ". A speech he will be keen to share with the 650,000 visitors expected at the show this year.

© 2020 AFP