Sieg im Kulturkampf vs. realpolitische Niederlage einer erneuerten Landwirtschaft

Rückschau auf die Demontage des McDonald’s und den Protest von Millau im August 1999

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain the collective action initiated by farmers together with their main protagonist José Bové with the local Confédération paysanne on 12 August 1999 as a threshold moment between the end of a classic old peasant world (in the sense of a world characterised by small agricultural and independent production units) and the politicisation of the “(agri)cultural” question in the French and global context. The term “(agri)cultural question” is used here to refer to the new social and political relationship to agriculture: It is subsequently redefined by Millau through new fundamental characteristics such as food quality, environ­mental protection or the opposition local vs. global. This significance of the event will be analysed by looking back on Millau 20 years later and placing it in the context of France in the 1990s.