The food shortage was felt in the spring. In each country the price of corn swelled: in France, the hectolitre worth 17.15 francs to 39.75 francs, and rose even at 43 francs at the end of the year ... The subsistence crisis was reflected immediately by popular unrest ... "As the historian Charles Pouthas he described the situation Europe's agricultural between 1847 and 1848. A few weeks later, all Europe ablaze and order absolutist established in the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna was collapsing. Party of Italy, the wind of revolt and then France won the Vienna, while the Austro-Hungarian and German states soon and even Switzerland. Between February and May 1848 The French monarchy collapsed with the abdication of Louis Philippe, Metternich stepped down to Vienna, Frankfurt Germany adopts a first Parliament ... All things being equal, this spring peoples approximates the "winter Arabic" we live in today, with the same revolutionary spread of Tunisia in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan ... Certainly, there was no Internet in 1848 or Facebook, but the information already circulated very quickly: the news of the fall of Louis-Philippe Metternich dropped like that of Ben Ali Mubarak shakes. But in both cases, the role played by the agricultural crisis and rising food prices is striking.
Continental Europe in 1848 was far from any agricultural self-sufficiency. To feed the cities, it had to import grain from America and Russia, and the only weapon available to the governments was that of tariffs, which still increases the consumer price. The first spark that kindled Europe at the end of 1847 was far from agricultural. The situation in the Arab world in 2011 is roughly comparable. From Morocco to the Persian Gulf, it is one of the main importing regions of the planet, whether grain (10 million tons of wheat to Egypt, 5 million for Algeria and Iran, 3 in Morocco and Iraq, 7 million tonnes of barley to Saudi Arabia etc..), sugar, oils, poultry or beef. Most of these states, with the exception of Morocco, have renounced all forms of agricultural policy and rely on imports to supply their cities. With a little oil, you can certainly buy wheat, oil or sugar. But ill early, rising world agricultural prices in the second half of 2010 has resulted in tensions at the consumer level. There was not really "food riots", but protests against high prices. As in 1848, the social and political discontent did the rest. Of course, the situation differs depending on whether a country can not pay or imports with its oil wealth, the two weakest links - Tunisia and Egypt - have no oil so that Algiers, Tripoli, Riyadh and the Gulf, governments are doing everything to maintain the urban plebs their daily bread . This is an indiscriminate buying in the future, but that's monarchs have always aging process.
In 1848, Tsar saved the Austrian Empire, Prussia needed in Germany and Louis-Napoleon pierced already under the Republic. Hopefully this "winter Arabic" better ending, but retain the lesson once again hits the agricultural world 160 years later. 
Philippe Chalmin, University Paris-Dauphine 
The World Economy See also:
Serge Lefort, riots,
Question
World, 14/02/2011.
Press Review
Poverty History 2008, World
Question
. Documented & Bibliography
Poverty, World Question .
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