David Rennie’s blog last Friday on the Telegraph website neatly encapsulates the tortuous dynamics of the current debate over reform of wine subsidies. Although French resistance to reform of the EU’s support to wine makers obviously reflects a wider economic problem of unwillingness to accept competition and open markets, it is clear that at root, the problem is a cultural one. Many in France (including the political elite) view themselves as a nation of producers – horny-handed sons of the soil, duly proud of their country’s long agricultural heritage – rather than as a nation of consumers, seeking out the greatest satisfaction in return for their Euros.
In reality, consumer life in France is much more similar to that in say the UK than this crude dichotomy suggests. Yet even amongst consumers, the desire to maintain a connection with the terroir is much stronger than for Britons. While the French happily chow down on ‘ le MacDo’ like the rest of us, a psychological imperative remains for life to be contained within the hexagon of their country. Hence the resistance to reforms that propose changing established French practices such as wine production.
In many ways this is an admirable wish, yet as Mr Rennie suggests, it is incompatible with life in the single market. What he doesn’t suggest, but maybe could, is that this divide might one day lead to a reassessment of the way that France relates to the rest of Europe, if the French people decide they would rather retain their idiosyncratic way of life than risk the cruel realities of globalisation.