- Title: France's Le Pen looks to win farmers vote at Paris agriculture fair
- Date: 28th February 2017
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 28, 2017) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF FRENCH FAR-RIGHT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, MARINE LE PEN, TALKING TO DAIRY FARMERS (SOUNDBITE) (French) DAIRY FARMER, JORIS PERRIN, SAYING: "She knows farmers. She wants to help farmers, she listens to them. More than the others." BULL WALKING PAST VARIOUS OF LE PEN POSING NEXT
- Embargoed: 14th March 2017 12:45
- Keywords: France Paris farm show Marine Le Pen presidential election farmers
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- City: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00165FQL3B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen visited the annual Paris farm show on Tuesday (February 28) amid a campaign to woo the symbolically important agricultural vote ahead of elections in April and May.
The nine-day long fair is home to 3,2000 animals and is a staple in the French political calendar with aspiring presidents passing through to pose for photographs and meet farmers, many of whom say they are growing increasingly disillusioned.
The rural community was traditionally hostile to Le Pen's brand of anti-EU protectionism but ravaged by years of crisis, polls show farmers turning to her party in ever greater numbers.
According to a Cevipof poll published in Le Monde on February 16, 35 percent of farmers plan to back Le Pen in elections in the spring, with a very high number planning not to vote at all.
Le Pen spent time at the fair meeting farmers including Joris Perrin from the Alpine Haute-Savoie region who said she appeared to care more about agriculture than other pretenders for the presidency.
"She knows farmers. She wants to help farmers, she listens to them. More than the others," he said.
Chief among Le Pen's proposals is to replace the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with a "French Agricultural Policy", tailored to the country's production.
"We have to make our agricultural policy more French to preserve the quality of our products, preserve what makes them special and what makes them high-quality exports, and which above all will allow farmers to make a living from what they produce and pass on their farms to those young people who are full of hope but who are coming into an agricultural world which is completely hopeless," she told journalists at the fair.
But many in the sector fear her plans to leave the EU would damage the export-dependent agricultural sector and deprive farmers of vital subsidies.
"It's simplistic to say you have to eat French products because if we want to develop we have to conquer other markets and she doesn't talk about that very much so I'm a bit doubtful," dairy farmer Richard Tholance told Reuters.
Le Pen was the first of the major presidential candidates to visit the show with the centrist and current frontrunner Emmanuel Macron and conservative Francois Fillon expected later in the week. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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