Can anyone save the Post Office? 

Angry farmers offer a theme for the week – starting with the French at close quarters. Leaving the Eurotunnel at Calais en route to a wedding in the Alps, my car party encounters agricultural rage in the form of convoys of stationary trucks at all the port’s major exit points, as tractors blockade the autoroutes and police do nothing to shift them. Echoing recent protests in Germany, Poland and Romania, French farmers want better price protection, cheaper diesel, more import barriers, more aid from Brussels and less green regulation.

We’re lucky not to be sprayed with manure, as was happening elsewhere. The protests have support from the powerful CGT union on the left and Marine Le Pen on the right, the latter calling the Emmanuel Macron regime ‘the farmers’ worst enemies’.What’s most significant is that polls say farmers also have the sympathy of almost 90 per cent of French voters across the political spectrum.