ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the changing nature of the economic behavior of farmers in contemporary France based on their financial practices. These changes can in part be understood through the work of the banking institutions engaged with the agricultural world. The normalization of the economic socialization of farmers, understood as aligning their mindset to a calculating managerial rationale, began very early with the spread of accounting tools in the nineteenth century. Farmers in France are obviously very heterogeneous, varying with their technical specialties and geographical location. A winegrower from the Champagne region has very little in common with a sheep farmer from southern France. French farmers undeniably form a wealthy class, particularly those from large-scale farms, who today are one of the social categories with the highest accumulated capital in France.
