Farmers' "market" banned

A co-operative making over 200 agricultural and horticultural products in the Pyrenees has been going to villages to sell for over 40 years. They have premises which can be visited or which welcome holiday guests in accommodation, the farm offering hands-on experience of looking after goats, sheep and cows, plus making cheese, honey and leather goods. But the farm is pretty well inaccessible in winter so the farmers say they need to get out to sell their produce in the locality.
However, local businesses claim that this is unfair competition and have prevailed on the local conseils communals to ban the farmers using municipal premises to sell their goods. The farmers suggest that the local councils are "closer to the commercants" than to their customers who are happy to buy direct.

Ferme des Cascades, Haute Pyrenees

It is always a tricky thing when a new enterprise threatens the existing businesses (cf supermarkets opening in small towns) and often it seems that French commercial laws protect businesses to the detriment of customers by restricting competition. But farmers' markets have an appeal that no supermarket can match and one would have thought a way through could be found.
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