France’s annual agriculture show, Le Salon d’Agriculture, will open its doors on Saturday with more than 600,000 visitors expected at the south-east Paris exhibition space at Porte de Versailles, where it is held every year.
On display in the vast showrooms will be exhibits of crops, organic farming and agricultural tools, a vast tasting area where visitors can sample produce from across France and beyond, and more than 4,000 farm animals, temporarily transforming the space into “the biggest farm in France”.
Among the livestock will be the “muse” – a sort of mascot selected to be the face of the event – which, in 2025, is a 6-year-old 1,000kg Limousin cow called Oupette, who will be placed in a box of honour at the entrance to the show.
“I’m already preparing for the salon by getting Oupette used to noise, seeing crowds and being handled so that she can be as beautiful as possible on the big day,” said her owner, cattle farmer Alexandre Humeau, in October.
Beyond just an industry showcase for one of the EU’s biggest agricultural producers and a chance for farmers to show off their finest animals, the event is a cultural fixture in the French calendar. The first Salon d’Agriculture in 1964 attracted crowds of 300,000 visitors, which had ballooned to 500,000 less than a decade later.
Its popularity is perhaps unsurprising in a country where the national cuisine is a corner stone of culture and identity.
“Agriculture occupies such a big psychological space in terms of how the French perceive themselves,” says Paul Smith, associate professor in French politics and history and head of French at University of Nottingham.
“Quite a lot of the French population are not many generations removed from being farmers themselves. And without agriculture there isn’t gastronomy and that’s a deeply embedded part of French identity.”
Today a large proportion of visitors to the salon are city dwellers keen to replicate a day out at the farm and food enthusiasts who want sample top quality regional produce.
But also queueing up to meet Oupette will be some of France’s highest-ranking politicians keen to demonstrate their grasp of rural issues and everyman credentials by posing for photo opportunities with farm animals and demonstrably enjoying French produce.
Farmers prepare for the 2022 Agricultiral Fair
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Former French president Jacques Chirac was the event’s first real champion. “He had been mayor of Paris, but he also liked to play a man who understood agriculture,” Smith says.
“Chirac set this idea of the president spending hours at the Salon and that became the blueprint. Now it’s become a kind of marathon where politicians have to outdo their predecessor.”
President Emmanuel Macron holds the current record after spending 13 hours at the event in 2024 after pledging to “meet all those who want to have an exchange of views”. The Salon was preceded by weeks of protests by farmers angry over low earnings, heavy regulation and what they describe as unfair competition from abroad.
A certain amount of confrontation is not unusual. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy famously caused outrage after swearing at a farmer who refused to shake his hand in 2008, and riot police were called in 2016 after protesters heckled then president François Hollande, then tore down the agriculture ministry stand.
This year, as the salon opens on Saturday, Macron is occupied trying to coordinate a European response to US-Russian interventions in Ukraine, and his government, led by Prime Minister François Bayrou, is teetering on the edge of collapse stymied by both the right-wing National Rally and a broad coalition of parties on the left.
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In this context, “It’ll be very interesting to see what the reception is for the various different party leaders,” says Smith. “How will the agricultural unions respond if [far-right leader] Marine Le Pen turns up? How will they respond if Bayrou attends?”
Macron, Bayrou and President of the National Rally Jordan Bardella have already said they plan to attend this years’ event. If last year is anything to go by, the far-right leader Bardella, whose party is becoming increasingly popular among farmers, looks set for a warm welcome.
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