French farmers generally benefit from popular support and are imbued with special status as custodians of the countryside. But in this documentary produced for the BBC World Service, Lucy Ash investigates how French agriculture and the French countryside are changing.
For many in France, the young included, globalization is a threat and profit is a dirty word. The French are deeply suspicious of what they refer to as the Anglo-Saxon free market system and they believe France can do things differently. And yet France is one of the most avid consumers of McDonald's burgers in Europe. In the last program in this BBC World Service series, Lucy Ash tries to understand why so many French are fearful of globalization and what that means for the future of France.
