For ten days, French farmers blocked roads, threatened to lay siege to Paris and obtained, among other measures, the suspension of a pesticide reduction plan. Despite the lifting of the roadblocks, this movement made a collateral victim: the Spanish tomato, accused of all evils by part of the political class and the agricultural world. Ségolène Royal, in particular, triggered a wave of anger on the other side of the Pyrenees by describing Spanish organic tomatoes as “ineatable”. “Accusations of unfair competition, boycott of foreign trucks, hostile declarations and allusion to the poor quality of Spanish products… The crisis of French farmers has revealed the enmities and fears of our neighbors, but also their agri-food nationalism”, complains the newspaper El Mundo.
A sign of xenophobia?
Even the very moderate El País gets a to the “tomato nationalism” which is rife in France. “Politics is reaching limitless levels of infantilization, the center-left daily despairs. We knew that football aroused hostilities between nations, but that this is also the case with tomatoes shows how deep the fall is. Accusing professionals and products from another country, looking for culprits abroad, this amounts to stirring up the demons of xenophobia and a populism that we do not deserve.”
The Spanish newspaper points out that “Ségolène Royal and all those who accuse Spain know very well that European farmers must all meet the same requirements to grow their crops. But they also know perfectly well that these criticisms can bring votes: they are the same cheap political maneuvers that raised the Brexit spirit, to the great regret of a majority of Britons today…”
As a sign of appeasement, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez invited Ségolène Royal to come and taste Spanish tomatoes on site. It would be better to wait for the natural tomato season to do this, not before spring.