SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF AGRO-ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN FRANCE AND EUROPE

As part of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, agro-environm ental measures are introducing a social control on agricultural practi ces in several European countries. Focusing chiefly on the French case , but with cross-national comparisons, this paper analyses the develop ment of ambiguous social concern about environmental degradation linke d to farming activities. Several causes are examined: the crisis of th e productive agricultural model, renewed urban pressure on countryside uses and overall development of environmental anxieties. The article stresses the fact that farmers are given the ambivalent parr of being at the same time damaging and managing the environmental qualities of the countryside. In conclusion, it questions the durability of public support to a policy based on local compromises and leading to greater territorial differentiation.