The beef farmers’ protests that disrupted meat processing in the past two months had echoes of France’s recent gilets jaunes movement: hi-vis jackets worn as the uniform of the exploited rural little guy; defiance towards existing representative organisations; tension fuelled by despair and a heavy-handed response through the law and its agents; all sparked by an immediate cash crunch illustrating a much wider challenge that protesters, business and authorities have struggled to grasp. In France, the announcement of a higher carbon tax on motor fuels led to the painful realisation that in the shift away from a fossil fuel-based economy…

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