PARIS, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- European Union agricultural subsidies aggrandize French farmers more than other EU farmers by a factor of three-to-one, a report said.
Overall, French farmers get nearly twice as much in direct subsidies as any other member state, the International Herald Tribune reported Wednesday. And nearly all of that largesse goes to big agricultural corporations, not small farmers, about half of whom receive no EU aid.
Such state aid infuriates non-governmental agencies that work with poor countries and free trade advocates.
"The world trade talks will fail because the EU won't budge, the EU won't budge because France won't budge, and France won't budge because its farmers have it over a barrel," said Neil O'Brien of the Open Europe think tank.
Even small French farmers resent the way EU farming aid is disbursed. Gerard Durand, of the farming union Confederation Paysanne, said smaller farmers were increasingly impatient with a situation where the richest farmers receive the lion's share of subsidies and 70,000 get nothing.
"In France there is no transparency about aid because they know that if details of how the money is distributed was published tomorrow nobody would continue to pay for it," he said.
