This IHT article about the G8 meeting in Russia suggests that France remains a holdout:

Chirac said the United States should reduce agriculture subsidies and stop export aid. He said concessions made by the European Union trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, on Oct. 28 were the most the 25-nation bloc could offer. Chirac also asked large emerging countries like Brazil, China and India to make “a significant effort.”

It’s not surprising that France is the most hostile opponent of reforming the Common Agricultural Policy. The nation receives three times the number of payments and twice the funds of any other European country. The top recipients are profiled here.

The Times article above alleges that many of the French recipients are politically powerful and connected to Chirac. That’s not obvious from this page, as the top recipients appear to be corporations. By the way, Fermes Francaises SA, the top French recipient, receives a pittance in comparison to some of the top UK beneficiaries.

To effectively tackle the issue, we need to highlight those corporations’ political connections, as well as other relevant political actors that have an interest in maintaining the CAP. In December, Richard Baldwin of the Graduate Institute of International Studies exposed (pdf) the British royalty as some of the biggest winners in a reverse-Robin Hood scheme. I’d like to see a similar investigation of the well-connected recipients in France.

What’s the best article you’ve seen on the political economy of the CAP?