Chirac or optimism. French President Jacques Chirac has partially disputed the direction of the reforms of the common agricultural policy (those of 1992, 1999 and the one to come), stating that a reduction in guarantee prices is to a great extent responsible for the mad cow crisis and other disasters which, for some months now, have dramatically perturbed Europe. His reasoning is simple: the drop in guarantee prices has led to a fall in agricultural revenue and which has only been partially...