
Quiet Epidemic of Suicide Claims France’s Farmers - fern12
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/world/europe/france-farm-suicide.html?_r=0
======
JPLeRouzic
it is a sad story. It recalls me the discussion about Portugal and Angola. I
was born in this part of France (Morbihan) 60 years ago. Young people of my
generation, flighted away from the work in farms. Their parents were just
forced to retire early, by state decision. The folks that stayed at home
became exploited by the "coopératives", a nice word for a hugly reality.
"Coopératives" took all the easy gros profit, while letting to farmers the
hard work, the business and health risks and the cost of investments. Banks
like "Le crédit Agricole" were really happy to lend money to farmers. As said
in the article, farmers debts are huge but they earn much less money than the
minimum revenue. However nowadays a subsidiary of "Crédit Agricole" called
"Amundi" is enough rich to buy France (the whole France) if it wants!

