“The agricultural world needs listening”

In the middle of our exchange, a neighbor rings at the door of Emmanuelle François: he brings two bottles of wine to thank her husband for having delivered several tons of land from his endiverie. “A concrete example of how to maintain mutual aid,” explains the fifties, installed in the Somme and married for twenty years to a farmer. She is not in the profession but grew up in the countryside “with a city lifestyle”. “As a child, I was fascinated by the knowledge of the nature that the peasants had. For me, they were the richest people in the world. After studying letters and philosophy, she helps the association of peasant days – founded in 1991 by farmer Jean -Louis Laureau and father Emmanuel Wilhelm – to transcribe the conferences given each year. It was on this occasion that she meets her husband. “He wanted to unite peasant life and life of faith, and exchange with people bearing the same questions,” recalls Emmanuelle François, now president of the peasant days. Being a farmer is not a job like any other, he touches creation. Today, everything is done to destroy it. We believe in a rebirth, because a civilization cannot survive without agriculture. But you have to dare faith in the night. »»

Arouse vocations

Since 2022, peasant days have organized their annual national meeting in Paray-le-Monial (Saône-et-Loire). The rector proposed that a jubilee of the agricultural world be organized there, to coincide with the 350 years of the sanctuary appearances. “This date also corresponds to the jubilee year of the church,” says Emmanuelle. The chosen theme is “come to me, you who are struggling under the weight of the burden” (Mt 11,28). “A jubilee is an action of grace: we will thank God for his benefits. But also beg him for the agricultural world in distress ”. A noven was launched in November, which asked God to arouse agricultural vocations, to restore cooperative structures, to support experienced peasants. And Emmanuelle to conclude: “Jesus was a carpenter, yet her parables are mainly taken in the agricultural world. We do not understand them in the same way when we saw a shepherd working or seeds die in the ground to give their fruit. We carry them in our flesh ”.