The Seeds of Farmer Populism: French Food Politics, Productivist Agriculture, and the Shortfalls of Globalization

Abstract

Over the past decade, populist politics have increasingly enthralled the French farming community, presenting farmers as a silenced, yet indispensable fabric of the French countryside. To assess the phenomenon of French farmer populism, the following questions will be addressed: What are the causes of rising populism among French farmers? What role have both material structures (government, policy, economy) and cultural institutions (French culinary heritage and peasant imaginary) played in promoting widespread rural backlash? Farmer populism in France will be analyzed with particular reference to the notion of gastronationalism, which marries the real expression of nationalist attitudes with the cultural posture of agro-food within a French context. This article argues that farmer frustration caused by structural power imbalances has manifested into (gastro)nationalist populism, characterized by the denouncement of policy-making institutions and the simultaneous reclamation of traditional paysan imaginary. Thus, the convergence of material and symbolic grievances, fueled by gastronationalism, is ultimately the distinguishing characteristic of peasant populism in France.