Possible Wine Violence?

Filed in archive French Wines on June 20, 2007

If you just think about this lightly, it seems like a lot to get worked up about over nothing. Sort of making a mountain out of a mole hill. However, when you think about it for awhile, it is understandable how people can get crazed when they think their livelihood may be in danger. Hopefully, it's a mole hill and not a mountain we'll see over in France.

From Radical winegrowers ferment grapes of wrath:

In a tape sent anonymously to French TV a month ago, the shadowy militants known as CRAV (Comite Regional d'Action Viticole or regional winegrowers' action committee) threatened violent action if new President Nicolas Sarkozy did not take measures to help wine growers in the vast Languedoc-Roussillon area.

"If Sarkozy does not support the interests of the wine industry, he will be entirely responsible for what happens," a spokesman in the video said. "We are at the point of no return."

Now, with no word from the President, France, or at least police in the southern towns such as Montpellier, Nimes and Beziers are bracing themselves for violence.

Experts warn against taking the group too lightly. "They are influenced by Corsican and Basque separatists, both of whom have ruined many lives and caused major economic disruption," said one senior police source.

"They sound amusing and colourful in a typically local sort of way but they are not. They have killed people in the past."