In response to America retaliating against Europe by placing tariffs on European goods the way European has them on American goods, the French government declared that for the first time this century they wanted 'access to innovation' - which means modern science and technology.
They want food sovereignty, and most bizarre of all from the French, fair competition. All things France has historically opposed in the name of the Green Deal and their Farm to Fork Idyll.
Credit: Polly Belyaeva, Storyblocks
It's welcome news for French scientists, who usually feel like Jewish people feel in Ireland, but given current geopolitics it's a surprise the government didn't rush back to science sooner. Only voter willingness to suspend disbelief about where their food came from prevented it. Europe's switch to solar and wind plus the move to organic food this century was propped up by Russia, who unsurprisingly were shown by the Obama administration to be funding American environmental groups opposing American science in those fields using offshore "donor-advised" funds to maintain secrecy. Which, coincidence or not, resulted in Europe blocking American energy and food exports.
Russia invading Ukraine after they got Europe reliant on energy from the east showed European citizens their leaders had been deceiving them about how viable alternative energy was. Europe got an alarming amount of conventional energy from Russia (and still gets a lot, alleged boycotts over Ukraine aside) while basically overnight Russia had begun exporting enough organic food to satisfy the European mandate.(1) France is nuclear so they weren't concerned about energy, and they were so right to ignore the fad of closing plants down that Germany just surrendered their anti-nuclear stance in EU policy, over the protestation of European activists who still insist solar can work.
None of that worked. Only Trump saying that unless countries like France, Brazil, and China lifted their tariffs against America we were placing them in kind worked.
We keep reading politicos saying that President Trump is a buffoon and science academia, over 90% Democrats, say he has doomed research but maybe, like with their own defense, Europe will finally stop being parasites and contribute to science. Right now, no leading companies are European. Europe leads in no science. Texas alone has four more world-class universities than the entire country of France.
Given that they have recognized their problem, it doesn't matter who gets the credit. Even though they were leaked, France didn't want its activists storming the Palace again, statements like "strengthening European food sovereignty", "establishing the conditions for genuine fair competition", "consolidating and simplifying the common agricultural policy", and "access to innovation" are wonderful to read for those who want to make France great again.
NOTE:
(1) Basically by throwing an organic sticker on conventional food. European environmental groups don't have expensive lab equipment and without it, it's impossible to detect the difference between a genetically modified piece of corn and anything labeled organic™.
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