French election hopefuls woo rural vote

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By Emma Jane Kirby BBC News, Paris

The leading candidates in the French Presidential election race are visiting the Salon d'Agriculture, the annual farmers' fair in Paris to establish their rural credentials.

The man I was standing beside the other day, as I waited for Jacques Chirac to arrive at the annual agriculture fair in Paris, did not have time to introduce himself and I did not much fancy shaking his hand anyway.

His eyes were focused on his four prize-winning spotted cows and the second he saw one of their tails twitch, his job was to race behind them with a giant bucket and then to wipe their bottoms with an industrial sized roll of toilet paper.

Presidential candidate Francois Bayrou is gaining in the polls

The President of France, he told me, was a great fan of farming but he did not need to see it in all its glory.

Mr Chirac has prided himself on being a man of the countryside. On the campaign trail he had an easy-going and happy rapport with the local communities. He was often photographed guzzling the local wine, while chewing on a local sausage, his hands clutching a hefty chunk of locally produced cheese.

At World Trade talks and European summits he was a passionate defender of French farming subsidies.

Anyone who seriously fancies taking over from Mr Chirac as the next President of France will also need to start courting that countryside vote

At the agricultural fair, he was parading around the cow pens like a seasoned herdsman, even scooping up a nearby goat and cuddling it to his breast while the farmers cheered and the goat bleated an indignant protest.

Mr Chirac has not done it all for love - it has also been about votes. Farming households may only make up around 3.5% of France's population but they still carry an awful lot of influence over the government.

Another candidate Philippe de Villiers answers questions

Anyone who seriously fancies taking over from Mr Chirac as the next President of France will also need to start courting that countryside vote.

The countryside matters to just about everyone in France. French people care about good quality food, they care about the beauty of bucolic landscapes, and they care about the survival of their rural heritage and family run farms.

Add that to the fact that the farmers' influence is also exaggerated by the French political system - particularly in the Upper House of Parliament, the Senate, which is elected by local officials from 36,000 mainly rural communities - and you begin to see why it is vital this week for every would-be presidential candidate to show their face at the Salon d'Agriculture.

Staunch support

French farmers traditionally vote right of centre but recent polls suggest this time the field is more open.

Mr Chirac drew such a loyal following of farmers not because they were staunch supporters of his centre right UMP party but more because they liked him as a man.

Mr Sarkozy is leading the polls at the moment

The personal touch may play out well for the rising star of these elections, the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou.

He is a farmer's son and a horse breeder and, as one French farmer told me recently, he is about the only credible candidate who can honestly say he knows what it feels like to milk a cow.

Meanwhile Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate, is scoring badly in surveys conducted in countryside communities despite representing a rural constituency herself - perhaps her white suits and high heels are holding her back.

Still topping the polls is Nicolas Sarkozy who comes from the same party as Mr Chirac but who has spent most of his life in Neuilly, a posh town just outside Paris which has left him tarnished with the "townie" brush.

Ms Royal has not found favour among rural communities

Besides which he is teetotal - can French farmers really put a man in the Elysee who would not celebrate his success by drinking their wine?

Francis Capelle, who manages a massive cereal farm about two hours north of the capital, believes that times are changing for rural communities.

The Capelle family have been farming here since before the Revolution but at the age of 57, Francis is now back at university, retraining to be a land surveyor.

He does not believe that French farming can survive in the way that it has until now and he wants to secure his future.

Big business

He told me how he has watched farming change from the days of the small holder with a few pigs and a few fields of beetroot, who employed four or five men to muck out and harvest to the giant grain producer of today who pretty much only employs machines.

"Farming is all about running a commercial business these days," he explained.

He added: "It's about numbers and figures and paperwork. I spend much more time in this office than I do out in the fields. Whoever becomes the next French president must understand that French farming is changing."

French farming is most certainly about big business. It is not Europe's largest exporter of agricultural products for nothing - but one quick glance at the Salon d'Agriculture in Paris, with its prize goats and its cider presses will also show you that tradition and supporting the local producer is equally important.

This week, as the presidential hopefuls tour the agricultural fair, the farmers will be watching closely to see if any one of them can offer what they need. And I will be taking my own measure of the candidate's success.

I will be looking out for that same farmer I met when Chirac visited the fair to see if he bothers to wipe his cows' bottoms for any of the new generation of politicians.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday, 8 March, 2007 at 1100 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.