French wine terrorists target imported wines

Over night, militant members of the CRAV broke into cellars of the cooperative Vignerons des Garrigues in Nimes and broke kegs in order to let the red and white wines spill into the drain.

"About 7 o´clock in the morning, when our first employees got there, they discovered the many open and empty kegs and all the wine puddles in our cellars", said Jean Foch, director at the cooperative Vignerons des Garrigues in an interview with the press and added: "Most part of the lost wines came from the Languedoc-Roussillon. The destroyed wine had a value of about 630.000 euro".

The culprits also wrote "CRAV" on the empty kegs, basically confessing to doing this right there. For many years, this militant group has been trying to go against cheap imported international wines and thus against the cellars concerned. Particularly tank trucks and facilities of wholesalers and cooperatives were damaged or even blown up. The CRAV is also responsible for bomb attacks on distribution transports, super markets and sections of the department of agriculture.

The group now again and more fiercely calls for France to stop importing and selling cheap import wines and to also guarantee or subsidize the prices for wines of local producers. Recently they even went so far as to threaten President Nicolas Sarkozy with the words "There will be blood".

"These people do not have any understanding whatsoever for the global market", says Jean-Fred Coste, vice president of the cooperative Vignerons des Garrigues and adds: "Only about 15 percent of our wines are imported. 85 percent of our wines come from France, namely from this region Languedoc-Roussillion.

Now, the managers of the cooperative Vignerons des Garrigues, where 38 million liters are produced each year, admit that the current market prices are "unfortunately low" due to the surfeit through cheap import wines. Furthermore, there was such a high amount of over-production and completely full cellars in France that it is logic that the European Commission offers vintagers subsidies or finances clearing of vineyards and calls for producers to produces something else.

Naturally, the French government and the EU have noticed this crisis. Now there are consultants on the way in order to encourage producers to introduce more quality and to say goodbye to mass production.

It is particularly the vintagers in the French growing regions, who mostly live from tourists and who suffer from the market pressure and the global economic crisis.

"In the French tourist regions, especially here in the South of France, where wine is definitely not just a basic industry, it is the wine that is part of the local heritage, since wine had been produced here even in times of the Romans", says Gregory Jorda of the cooperation association Collines du Bourdic. This cooperative is located on the edge of the medieval and picturesque province city Uzes, surrounded by vineyards that reach up to the horizon.

"Some of our members already wanted to give up, but then they decided to accept the state subsidies and either retire or grow something else", explains Gregory Jorda and says further: "But some of them are too young to quit and it is not that easy to turn a vineyard into something else. It is a real dilemma".

The local vintagers are all proud of their tradition. Many understand the goal of the CRAV, even though they distance themselves from their violent attacks. There is real tension in the air. There is rarely anyone who wants to say something about this to the media or answer sensitive questions. Even Gregory Jorda answers the questions about this with "No comment". (aw.yoopress)