Very French.

Paris announced that from next year it would confiscate over 20 per cent of the billions of euros of European taxpayers’ money paid to its ranch-like cereals farms and divert the cash to hill farmers, grazing land, shepherds and organic agriculture.

The announcement brings to an end almost half-a-century of official hypocrisy in which French governments have talked about protecting “family farms” and “quality food” but allowed the bulk of European largesse to flow to chemical-assisted, hedge-free, cereals-ranching in northern, central and eastern France. . .

“We have animal rearing farms which are suffering. We have hill areas which are suffering,” he said. Farm subsidies must be reallocated to make the payments “more equitable”, he said. “And because they are fairer, they will be permanent.”

Why subsidize any of them? What's fair about subsidies? When you consider the whole issue, including not least trade with other nations, especially developing nations, the cynical manipulation is exposed.

France has always been a leader in protectionist agricultural policies. This is a policy to ratchet up the pressure.

. . . farmers complain that their costs are rising because of increased environmental and animal welfare rules that the rest of the world do not have to meet. After a recent vocal campaign by cattle farmers, the Commission restricted imports of beef from Brazil, where foot-and-mouth disease is rampant. . .

The present debate was started by an interview with Michel Barnier in the Financial Times. He recommended that Africa and Latin America should adopt their own version of the CAP which would be the first time a policy disaster has been exported. However, Mr Barnier believes that the developing world should form self-sufficient regional blocs with a redirection of development aid.

Mr Barnier claimed, 'What we are now witnessing in the world is the consequence of too much free-market liberalism. We can't leave feeding people to the mercy of the market. We need a public policy, a means of stabilisation and intervention.'

Will these policies feed people? Well, not many, and only the rich. Hypocrisy is secure in the EU, especially in France.