The Review - FOOD & DRINK- The Wine Press with DON & JOHN Published: 15 November 2007
Picture courtesy of Editions Aldacom, Bezier
The grapes of wrath
Protest – often violent – has marked the struggle for a decent living wage among the vignerons of Languedoc who have also fought to protect the quality of the wine they produce. In the second part of our special report on the region we look at the politics of the conflict
LANGUEDOC has the longest history of wine-making in France. It is also the most extraordinary. Nothing illustrates this better than the uprising of its vignerons (wine-makers) in 1907.
The background to this was the phylloxera outbreak in the 1870s and 1880s that all but wiped out the French wine industry. The identification of the parasite attacking the vines by the School of Pharmacy in Montpellier and the grafting of native strains onto resistant American roots gave Languedoc an advantage in escaping from this crisis.
However, the grape selected for grafting (Aramon) was not a good variety. To offset this disadvantage, Algerian wine was blended with local grapes on an industrial scale, making Languedoc the birthplace of a modern capitalist wine industry with international links, in this case north Africa. In the unprecedented boom that followed – with Béziers, transformed briefly into a miniature Paris – a new urban and semi-rural proletariat sprang up.
By the early 20th century, this growth had led to overproduction in a now unstable market, kept going by various questionable practices. As the rest of France caught up and high railway charges gave others a competitive edge, Languedoc’s viticulture collapsed. Faced with falling sales, owners cut wages and sacked workers.
Groups of small growers banded together in co-ops, supplying larger retail co-ops in and around Paris. Co-operative links with the Socialist Party politicised the production of wine. Strikes began in 1903, continuing through 1904 and into 1906. In 1907 a Comité de défence viticole (Committee for the defence of wine production) in the small commune of Argeliers north of Narbonne in the Aude, attacked bulk producers. Their target was the use of recent tax breaks to add sugar and beetroot, intensifying and colouring their wines. In the Committee’s paper Le Tocsin (Alarm Bell), Marcelin Albert, café owner and wine maker answered the question Qui sommes nous? (Who are we?) with the challenge: “We are those who refuse to starve.”
This slogan combined the call to industrial action with a demand for an improvement in quality. Albert’s linking of poor-quality, mass-produced wine with low wages sparked a wider protest under his joint leadership with the socialist mayor of Narbonne, Dr Ernest Ferroux. Subsequent demonstrations, echoing Languedoc’s Catalan past, ranged from 70,000 to half a million people. Following this, the Argeliers committee demanded and won the mass resignation of local councillors throughout almost the whole region.
Faced with a civil uprising, Clemenceau, the head of the government, over-reacted, sending in troops and arresting Ferroux. (Albert went into hiding, surfacing only for an abortive meeting with Clemenceau in Paris.) In subsequent demonstrations, five people, including 20-year-old Cécile Bourrel, were shot. Some 600 troops deserted their barracks, joining protesters in Béziers.
Its hand forced, the government rushed through legislation limiting fraudulent practices and recognising local protest committees as official bodies. Ferroux, now released, became head of a government sponsored confederation of wine makers. These moves marked the first attempts to address over-supply, improve grape varieties and encourage co-operation.
As with other expressions of popular protest, the results can be viewed from different perspectives. Yet popular protest in Languedoc since 1907 has remained true to its syndicalist roots.
In 2000-01 violent attacks on supermarkets, tankers, storage depots and government offices convulsed the region, when European regulations allowed in wine (some of it believed to be from Latin America via Spain) at a third below prevailing prices. In a single night of pitched motorway battles between combined forces of mobile, riot and local police, and “action-commandos” in balaclavas armed with axes, pick axe handles and baseball clubs, damage was estimated at 20 million francs.
Throughout this period of open repudiation of the French state and European Union, protest remained resolutely fixed on wine whose origins could not be traced and the lowering of prices, i.e. on issues of quality and the true costs of production. In words that could have come straight from the mouth of Albert Marcelin, national co-op president, Denis Verdier declared, ‘The fight is for our children and villages, and for those rural areas that do not wish to die.’
Thanks to John Emmott for help with translation
Comment on this article. (You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)
