Once again, France’s farmers have been blocking motorways with their tractors in protest, this time at an impending EU trade agreement with a group of South American countries in a common market known as Mercosur, which has been 25 years in the making.

The tragedy is that while the EU can finally claim an important victory in its strategy of sealing rules-based free-trade pacts with key regions and countries worldwide to counter aggressive US trade protectionism, in so doing it is helping the Eurosceptic far right to electoral victory in France. Losing the support of France, a founding member, for European integration if the far right wins power, would have a more damaging impact on the long-term stability of the EU than any trade boost with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

This bind is not the fault of “Brussels bureaucrats” – the easy target for all grievances around Europe. The European Commission has bent over backwards to craft safeguard clauses and emergency brakes in case of a sudden surge in food imports. It has brought forward planned future agricultural spending to assuage farming countries such as France, Poland, Ireland and Italy. Farmers fear that cheap South American beef, not produced to strict EU standards, will flood their markets.

It’s mostly down to the collective cowardice of France’s political leaders, starting with the president, Emmanuel Macron. Macron

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