History of wine : Montredon events

The story begins in 1970 with European deregulation. It opens the borders to cheap Italian wines : thousands of Languedoc winegrowers find themselves ruined. Roads and ports are blocked, public treasures blown up. "The wine war" hits the headlines.

The 3 mars 1976, two Aude winegrowers are arrested after an action against the largest importer of Italian wines. To obtain their release, the Viticultural Action Committee - a kind of armed wing of trade unionism - calls to occupy the Montredon bridge, near Narbonne. Several thousand winegrowers meet there 4 mars 1976, blocking the road and the railway in front of the CRS.

"We were on the verge of explosion", remembers André Cases, who was then at the head of the CAV of Aude. “The winegrowers had brought their guns. We had all made Algeria. So CRS… We had seen others ", tells the winemaker, now aged 79 years. "The CRS were shot as soon as they got off the trucks", recognizes Jacques Mestre, 82 years, another CAV manager. Law enforcement responds and a shootout ensues for almost half an hour. "We saw the bullets tracing. A winegrower received one in the forehead. So, everything stopped ", remembers the retiree. A little after, protesters will learn another death is to be deplored, a CRS commander. The perpetrators of the fatal shots will never be found. A winegrower from Audois, Albert Teisseyre, will be imprisoned for 70 days before being released and then amnestied.

The winegrowers set fire to wagons and dismantle voices, before the shooting breaks out between armed protesters and CRS. Thirty people will also be injured. "We must pass on to our young people the limits that must not be crossed", underlined during a speech Jacques Serre, 66 years, witness to the clashes. "They were winemakers driven to despair whose only solution was to demonstrate or to commit suicide", he recalled however.

Every year since, CRS and winegrowers come together, on different dates, in front of the stelae of the two victims erected on either side of the Montredon bridge. The winegrowers of the region visited the Emile Pouytes stele, the winegrower killed during the events, on which is engraved "Vigneron, remember ". . They then walked silently, Occitan flags at the head, to the stele erected in memory of Joël Le Goff, the CRS commander who also lost his life in the shooting. Friday, the former members of the CRS company to which Mr.. Le Goff had already come to lay two wreaths on the stelae of the deceased.

The "Montredon events", as we call them, will have put a stop to the wine movement, by leading some to believe that this was the goal sought by the authorities. “Montredon was wanted by the public authorities to stop the movement. It was a provocation "accuses Jacques Mestre. But if Montredon killed the movement, at least temporarily, he saved the Languedoc vineyard, underlines Frédéric Rouanet, President of the Aude Winegrowers Union.

"Without Montredon, there would be no more vines here. There was a plan to concrete the Midi. The former members of Montredon were the first to show attention to Europe and they were not wrong ", believes M. Rouanet, 32 years. Because if Languedoc viticulture has since recovered, malaise has spread to other agricultural sectors.

"Farmers are at the same point today. They have to face the same unfair competition. We, it was Italian wines. Them, it's the Spanish salad or the Bulgarian ducks. It is a perpetual restart ", warns Jacques Mestre, who takes as proof "what is happening at the Salon de l'Agriculture". "A President of the Republic is insulted and whistled. It's incredible. I hope there will be measures, otherwise it will happen bullshit ”, warns Frédéric Rouanet.

"We see suicides, ruined farmers. Montredon could repeat itself today. Those responsible are the same : trading and high distribution, thugs who want to make a profit to the detriment of the agricultural world ”, adds Jacques Serre., 66 years, who was in 1976 a young member of CAV audois. But the drama could not "be repeated" identically, with its deadly consequences, according to him. "We are no longer at the same time", confirms M. Rouanet. "They had fought in the Algerian war. We, we didn't even do military service ".

"It is necessary that the winegrowers, market gardeners, farmers can have a decent income ”, added M. Tight, member of the FDSEA. "Revolt is sometimes the last resort when all else is in vain", ruled Roland Courteau, PS senator from Aude.