Posted on 04/21/2005 12:45:19 PM PDT by lizol
Southern French wine growers turn violent Big News Network Thursday 21st April, 2005 (UPI)
Wine growers in southern France, hit by falling consumption, competition from other nations and lots of production from northern France, are turning violent.
A demonstration which began peacefully in Narbonne by some 10,000 growers seeking more help from Paris and Brussels erupted into a clash with police, the Independent reported Thursday.
Some 50 young wine growers plus a handful of anarchists threw Molotov cocktails, stones and flares at riot police Wednesday.
The demonstrators were angry that, having cut their production, growers in northern regions boosted theirs, thus reducing wine prices across France. They also demanded a one-year moratorium on property taxes and social charges plus more aid, specifically for southerners.
Wine growers from southern France also want the European Union to double the amount of French wine it buys each year. The EU buys hundreds of millions of gallon of wine yearly for use in industry, thus helping prop up the price of wine.
Other factors hurting southern French wine makers are declining domestic consumption and competition from other nations' wine growers.
IIRC it was the Austrian wines that had antifreeze added- did the French do it too?
"The demonstrators were angry that, having cut their production, growers in northern regions boosted theirs, thus reducing wine prices across France."
LOL! They're upset that their attempt at colluding to inflate the price of wine didn't work!
They wanted to make more for working less, but the other wineries were willing to work harder to make more money.
Their solution? Have the government force the other wineries to stop producing so much, and have the EU buy more wine to subsidize their industry at inflated prices.
Yet the French wonder why their economy isn't growing, and are resorting to wanting to sell arms to the Chineese to prop up their economy.
If this is the kind of leadership that the French are going to show in the EU, it's clear that they EU will not become an economic powerhouse to rival the US.
They must have been swatting each other with their purses!
French wine makers could sell a whole lot more wine in the US if the elitists in the blue states washed their socks more often.
Can you imagine?
"Ze feelthy Americains are not drinking enough wine, oui? Zen I say we throw a fit! We stamp our feet, we gnash our teeth, we wear our berets at a tilt, we stub our Gauloises out on ze sidewalk! A bas la lanterne, putains! How you like zem apples, eh?"
Its made in Newton, Iowa. The washing machine family and the dairy family are cousins.
The preferred term is "le chaudron."
That's basically my view: Pitch a fit because (at least primarily because) your wine isn't sufficiently popular with buyers to justify your economic existence.
Look. If I ran, say, a muffler shop, and people didn't buy my mufflers, I'd go find something else to do. I wouldn't riot and demand that other muffler shops raise their prices (and cut supplies of mufflers) so that I could survive artificially.
or mauvaise herbe?
Maytag's home office is in Newton, IA
but I hear they may be soon mfg washing machines overseas???
Hopefully not France.
If the French winegrowers think they have problems now, wait until the Muslims take over their country and close down the entire wine and alchohol industries!
THere is also some kind of Oregon cheese that's a winner, too. Handmade, too.
Dang. All those grapes.
You know, the French do have some good wines. But the Sicilians. Man, could I use some private label Sicilian about now. And, of course, they never export their best.
Sigh.
A plumber/washing machine repair man (who's also an old friend) told me last year to keep the Maytags that I have right now, and to never get rid of them. He's seen much higher failure rates on the new models.
I bought the one we have now in 1989 new...no problems yet(knock on wood)LOL
"And zen just to reeealy show zem, we don't take a bath for weeks so we steenk real good and offend their sensitive American noses!
Oh wait...we do zat already, anyway..."
Perhaps if they get really mad, they'll burn their own vineyards. That should drive the price up.
The French make wine?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.