The European Commission gave its green light, officially on June 1, to the plan for reducing wine production capacity, developed by the Ministry of Agriculture over the past winter, in order "to respond to the structural difficulties faced by a number of wine-growing regions due to the decline in wine consumption, particularly red wine." Also to be seen Taking the form of a Call for Expression of Interest (EOI), the program collected 5,800 applications for a total of nearly 28,000 hectares, of which 37% came from producers ceasing all viticulture activities immediately and 67% interested in partially uprooting their vineyard, limited to vines over 10 years old. The program includes aid of €4,000/ha. The initial budget of €130 million potentially allowed for the uprooting of 32,500 hectares. Anticipating the response from Brussels, Paris had authorized, as early as mid-April, the vine growers who responded to the EOI to begin the uprooting projects, in order not to incur expenses ...