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Affectionately known as the “biggest farm in France”, the Paris International Agricultural Show, a nine-day fair spread over a vast exhibition lot on the French capital’s southwestern edge, is the nation’s showcase for the best the countryside has to offer, from livestock to terroir delicacies, primed for prestigious competition. But in an election year, the event’s straw-strewn aisles are also home to another preening breed: that political beast known as the French presidential candidate.
Last year’s edition of the Salon de l’Agriculture, cancelled over Covid-19, was the first-ever break with a hallowed tradition. The 58th running of the fair begins Saturday and runs through March 6, little more than a month before the first round of France’s presidential election on April 10. Even as war loomed in Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said he would attend the fair’s opening day, poised as he is to announce his bid for re-election any day now. And few, if any, of Macron’s challengers for the Élysée Palace can afford to skip the affair, either. They know where their bread is buttered. Quite literally.
“It’s a compulsory figure in a presidential election. Every candidate must go, to show their attachment to traditions, to the terroir, to France’s farming community,” political historian Christian Delporte told FRANCE 24.
“The big advantage of the Salon de l’Agriculture is that you have all of France in one place. All of rural France, all of farming France, sure, but all of France anyway,” added Delporte, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Versailles. “And so, going from stand to stand, in a way one is visiting that region and one is linked to that terroir, so the symbolism is strong.”
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Source : france24
