The rich get charity

last updated 8 January 2015

Paris

The biggest agricultural companies pocket most of the E.U.’s farm subsidies to France, Oxfam said this week. According to a new study by the international relief agency, France’s smallest farmers, who represent 70 percent of the country’s agriculture, get less than 20 percent of E.U. largess. The largest 15 percent of French farmers, by contrast, collect 60 percent of the E.U. payments. Prince Albert of Monaco, for instance, got a tidy $340,000 last year for his French farm. France is the biggest net receiver of E.U. agriculture funding and has fought efforts to reduce payments. “This gives the lie to the French argument that it uses E.U. subsidies to support its small farmers,” said Oxfam’s Celine Charveriat.