A farmer runs for nine days. The state hunts him. Nobody asks why.
On May 20, 2017, Jérôme Laronze, a 37-year-old cattle farmer, was shot dead by gendarmes at the end of a nine-day run. In conflict with government services, the organic farmer, spokesman for the Confédération paysanne de Saône-et-Loire, had evaded yet another health inspection and, during his escape, had tried to alert people to the malaise in his profession. The news of his death came as a bombshell in a farming world already plunged into mourning by a wave of suicides. How did it come to this? While their incomes depend almost exclusively on European subsidies - which favor large farms - farmers must, in return, comply with very strict standards.
Direction
Culand refuses easy villains — the tragedy is structural.
Editing
Nine days compressed into unbearable inevitability.
Director
Gabrielle Culand
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Confédération paysanne, which Laronze represented, gained international attention through José Bové's 1999 dismantling of a McDonald's — this film shows how little changed.
The 'health inspection' that triggered Laronze's flight concerned bovine tuberculosis testing — a EU mandate that small organic farmers often experience as surveillance rather than support.
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