Why France’s farmers are leaning into conspiracies

Why France’s farmers are leaning into conspiracies

Conspiracy theories have a habit of turbocharging political movements in France. In the years leading up to the Revolution at the end of the 18th century, a period of riots and robbery called the Flour War was provoked by bad harvests and poor regulation leading to high grain prices. It was then inflamed by theories of a “Famine Pact”, which claimed that the elites were deliberately hiding grain from the population. The Gilets Jaunes, France’s b…