Champs Elysees turned green to showcase French farmers’ produce

IT was as if O’Connell Street in Dublin had been turned into a site for the national ploughing championships.

Jeunes Agriculteurs, the Young Farmers’ Union in France, representing 55,000 farmers under 35, turned the celebrated Champs-Elysees in Paris into a farm over the weekend.

Mini-fields the size of six soccer pitches were laid our along part of the avenue to showcase farm production and highlight the industry’s concerns.

Some 8,000 plots of earth and 150,000 plants were brought to the city and laid out, amid sheep and cattle, along three-quarters of a mile of the famous avenue

The two-day event, timed to coincide with a holiday weekend, attracted a reported two million visitors in glorious weather including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla. They made a surprise visit in what observers said was an effort by the French leader to ease tensions with the farming community.

French farmers angered by falling incomes have previously used Paris to highlight their grievances including a tractor-led demonstration last month and a protest at the presidential palace in December.

But William Villeneuve, president of the Young Farmers’ Union, insisted the greening of the avenue was more a celebration than a protest.

“We are not here to bemoan our plight. We are here to promote our trade. We want to make French consumers reflect on what they have on their plates and how it got there,” he said.