President Macron’s visit to the Paris Farm Show on Saturday turned into a fiasco amid protests, chaos and violence.
On Sunday it was the turn of Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old rising star of the hard right, who is leading the National Rally campaign in this summer’s European elections.
Bardella is widely seen as a future head of state in a country leaning increasingly to the right, and the weekend’s events have done nothing to dent his aspirations.
Where Macron,45, had been booed by angry farmers who clashed with police, the poster boy of French populism enjoyed a triumph, with his supporters shouting “Jordan, on t’aime” (Jordan, we love you) as he admired the cows, sheep and goats.
Dressed in a dark grey suit and black tie, he comforted a female farmer who burst into tears as she told him of her financial difficulties, took selfies with his fans and told The Times that he would succeed where David Cameron had failed by changing the rules of the European Union.
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“France is the biggest contributor to the EU,” he said, adding: “France pays, France must decide.”
In fact, Germany contributes more to the EU budget according to Brussels, but that did not stop Bardella from arguing that the bloc had been “built almost exclusively to serve German interests”.
He promised to rectify the imbalance by promoting French “economic patriotism”, notably to favour the country’s farmers.
The National Rally abandoned its commitment to leave the EU a decade ago as Marine Le Pen, 55, sought to woo mainstream voters after taking over as party leader from her father, Jean-Marie, 95, who has multiple convictions for incitement to racial hatred.
Bardella, who has since replaced Le Pen as party chairman, insisted that there was no need to follow the example of Brexit and that instead the EU could be reformed “from the inside”.
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His was an assured performance on a high-profile stage that is likely to comfort his supporters in their belief that he will not only win this summer’s European elections, as polls predict, but that he would make a better candidate than Le Pen in the 2027 presidential election, when the party also hopes to triumph.
The annual Paris Farm Show has huge symbolic importance in a country that remains attached to agriculture, attracting about 600,000 people and almost every ambitious politician in the land.
It is traditionally inaugurated by the president but rarely in conditions like those faced by Macron. “I’ve been coming to the show for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Arnaud Rousseau, chairman of the National Farmers’ Union. “It was total chaos.”
Riot police had been drafted in to maintain order but fought with protesting farmers, forcing officials to delay the opening of the show.
When the president finally cut the ribbon, it was against a backdrop of chants of “Macron, resign”.
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He had done his best to avoid any such scenes, with his government unveiling a €1.2 billion package to appease farmers complaining of falling revenues, environmental constraints and red tape less than a month ago.
When violence erupted anyway upon his arrival at the show, he attributed it to National Rally supporters. “We are not behind this anger which is present in the country,” retorted Bardella. He described the head of state as a “schizophrenic conspiracy theorist who is worryingly paranoid”.
