Editing Syndicalism (section)

===[[File:Cball-Occitania.png]]Comité d'Action Viticole ===
The ‘Comité Régional d'Action Viticole’ (CRAV) is a French militant group for wine producers. The group was formed in 1970 and is primarily active in the southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon. CRAV believes that the region has been plagued by surplus production, which has disadvantaged wine producers. The insurgency is responsible for numerous attacks in the region, which have involved dynamiting grocery stores and wineries, or even burning cars.


Ideologically, the CRAV seeks to pressure the government to adapt the quality and quantity of wine production to changing market realities. Essentially, the group seeks to make the government acknowledge and react to the falling domestic, daily demand for French wine. The CARV emphasises that this impact on the French wine market has been caused by the European Union’s subsidies, which have negatively influenced smaller producers. Amongst the other workers’ protest organisations in France, CRAV is the most violent.


CRAV's official political demands include elements that are considered impossible for French politicians due to the European Union’s rules; many of the group’s demands would require interference with a single market (the wine market), as well as introducing restrictive tariffs against the rising imports of Spanish and Italian wine. 


The insurgency has orchestrated numerous attacks (primarily throughout the southern region of Languedoc-Roussillon), such as dynamiting grocery stores, wineries, the agriculture ministry offices of two cities, burning a car in another city, hijacking a tanker, and destroying large quantities of non-French wine. Moreover, the French manager for the E. & J. Gallo Winery in California has reported that he — along with his sales staff — have been physically assaulted by alleged members of the CARV. In May 2007, the group also released a video where spokesmen threatened that “blood would flow” if President Sarkozy failed to raise the price of foreign wine.