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Wine Crisis in Languedoc-Roussillon Provokes Wave of Violence

French government offers to help growers after marches and riots

Diana Macle

Posted: Monday, July 07, 2008

The streets of Montpellier in southern France were filled with tear gas on June 26, after a protest by vineyard growers in the Languedoc turned violent. The clashes were a warning to the French government that despite reform plans by both the European Union and the French government, millions of small vignerons face economic ruin as French consumption of low-cost table wines shrinks. Paris seems to be listening for now. Within a few days, the French minister of agriculture announced $3 million worth of financial aid.

The march on Montpellier started out peacefully, drawing a crowd of over 4,000 demonstrators who called for more economic support from the government. But things quickly grew ugly when some protesters began tossing Molotov cocktails. Riot police used tear gas to break up the crowd.

Before long, violent rioting broke out in several towns in the Languedoc, according to the French Ministry of Internal Security and local media reports. Some 200 growers wearing ski masks and wielding baseball bats vandalised four Crédit Agricole banks and three supermarkets, smashing bottles of wine in the liquor aisles. Some of the rioters allegedly overturned and tried to burn a car with six gendarmes still sitting inside, an act that Minister of Internal Security Michèle Alliot-Marie called "attempted murder." But nobody has been arrested or charged in the spate of violence yet. The Comité Régional d'Action Viticole (CRAV), a radical group of winegrowers responsible for previous acts of vandalism in Languedoc, has not claimed responsibility for the incidents.

Marie-Hélène Forest, the managing director of the Aude Winegrowers Syndicate, said that while she felt the acts of violence were disgraceful, she understood the perpetrators' desperation. "Ninety-nine percent of the region's vintners are at the end of their tether," she said. Languedoc's small vignerons have been hit hard by the decreasing value of the area's wines and the rising cost of production, especially the price of gasoline, in recent years. The average price of Merlot for low-cost vin de pays wines has dropped from the equivalent of 75 cents a bottle in July 2001 to just 60 cents a bottle last November.

Less than a week after the riots, minister of agriculture Michel Barnier announced that President Nicolas Sarkozy's government would finance emergency measures allocating around $3 million to help the winegrowers hit hardest by the industry crisis. The money will be used to help finance the social security contributions of vintners. The aid follows $2.68 million already allocated this year by the government to assist winegrowers in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Barnier also said that he was going to introduce several amendments in France's senate. One would oblige merchants to make a down payment of 15 percent when they place an order with winegrowers. A second one would oblige buyers to pay within a shorter time. Forest said she was pleased that the minister appeared to be pragmatic, however, a fairer deal from merchants was not the only problem requiring solutions. "Wine consumption is decreasing in France, where it is being treated as a diabolical beverage hampered by strict advertising laws," she said. "We discussed this dilemma with the minister who agreed that changes should be made so we can at least advertise on the Internet."

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