But at the party’s congress in Lyon, where delegates were plotting how to avoid expected losses in this June’s EU election, Green politicians repeatedly insisted it was their conservative and far-right opponents, not them, that had left farmers in dire straits. They even made their case directly to farmers, who were invited to air grievances at a hastily scheduled session Friday night. 

“What we want is to stop being dependent on subsidies,” implored Joris Michon, a pear grower who heads the local chapter of Coordination Rurale, France’s second-largest farmers’ union. 

We want, he added, “a decent living from our work with fair prices, perhaps with the introduction of market regulation and a better sharing of margin profits.”

That’s what we want, the Greens replied throughout the weekend. We’re with you. 

It’s a hard sell given the images of recent days: Rumbling tractor conveys snarling roads and blocking ports; a statue toppled into a roasting bonfire; manure dumped at the government’s doorstep. And anger, everywhere anger, all seemingly directed at the Green Deal. 

But the Green Deal is not to blame, attendees argued. 

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