Terror and terroir by Andrew W. M. Smith

Author:Andrew W. M. Smith [Smith, Andrew W. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, France, Modern, 20th Century, Social History
ISBN: 9781526101129
Google: G225DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-09-19T00:22:16+00:00

Figure 8 Poster campaigning for the release of Albert Teisseyre

Three weeks after the Montredon shootout, a winegrower called Albert Teisseyre was arrested and charged with ‘attempted homicide’,122 a charge which was serious, but not such as to threaten his freedom.

Four years after the events, Teisseyre was arrested again, with sketchy photographic evidence suggesting that it was he that fired the fatal shot. There was outrage that the prosecution had taken so long to arrive in court, with the PCF describing it as a ‘new provocation against winegrowers and winegrowing’.123 Maffre-Baugé promised the support ‘of all winegrowing organisations’.124 The court case spanned the fifth anniversary of the shootings as legal changes complicated proceedings.125 The difficulty lay in determining whether Teisseyre was involved in a political act or a criminal one, with the Peyreffite law of 1981 allowing him to be tried for a criminal charge despite his predating conviction in 1976. This in turn posed serious questions about the CRAV and their role. The case encountered a series of delays, with an original judgment date of November 1983 postponed into 1984.126 Finally, on 2 February 1984 Teisseyre was pardoned under the Amnesty law brought in by Mitterrand’s government in 1981.127 Cases described the amnesty as a victory that was essential to maintain ‘social order’, congratulating the courts on reaching a sensible verdict.128 Inevitably challenged in the Appeals court by the prosecutors, the case rumbled on before Teisseyre was fully acquitted in July 1985, a verdict his lawyer described as ‘historic’.129 This protracted trial revealed the scars that Montredon had left. The amnesty allowed the Midi to come to terms with the human cost of the events, with monuments erected in memory of the fallen.130 The failures of political representation that had driven the Défense movement into a cycle of radicalisation had created monsters and martyrs of ordinary winegrowers. When the dust settled, however, the gaunt Castéra surmised that all that remained was ‘a shared shame’.131

Notes

1 P. Martin, ‘Viticulture du Languedoc: une tradition syndicale en mouvement’, Pôle Sud, 9:9 (1998), pp. 73–77.

2 ADA 98J8, ‘Vivre au pays’, Midi Libre (02/08/1975).

3 The Occitan cross (Croix Occitane) is the distinctive twelve pointed yellow cross set against a red background which constituted the heraldry of the twelfth-century Counts of Toulouse and represents an early emblem of Occitan nationhood.

4 Interestingly, the picture also displays support for the regionalist disturbances in Brittany occurring at the same time, with a placard reading ‘Breton peasants – We are with you’.

5 ADH 406W113, Letter from Union Régionale des Coopératives Agricoles du Midi (11/05/1959).

6 For further discussion of the history of the Félibrige movement and their cultural significance, see P. Martel, Les Félibres et leur temps: renaissance d’oc et opinion, 1850–1914 (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2010); S.Calamel and D. Javel, La Langue d’oc pour etendard: les félibres (1854– 2002) (Toulouse: Privat, 2002). An internal history of the Félibrige was written by its capoué (leader), see R. Jouveau, Histoire du Félibrige (Nîmes: Bené, 1977).

7 COEA, Le Petit Livre de l’Occitanie (Nîmes, 4 Vertats, 1971), p.

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