France, a nation of farmers who trace their traditions back to medieval times, cultivates the soil with pride. Photographer Jonathan Alpeyrie set out to tell the stories of farmers struggling under what they see as restrictive rules from Brussels and a flagging global economy.

This combination has led to a psychological rift with a new world order which farmers say values profit over quality. Their sense of desperation leads not just to revolt but to a wave of suicides in farming communities. Hundreds of French farmers take their own lives each year. The results are devastating, often leaving a family without its breadwinner, in debt and with a farm to maintain.

Lorient Louis Ganay Languidic

Born in Marseilles, Languidic didn’t dream of becoming a farmer. He got a master’s degree in law and taught economics in Brittany until he began to find higher education too institutionalized. Returning to university to focus on agriculture, he worked on dairy farms until he came across a listing for a farm in a local paper in early 2012. He and his wife visited the farm, fell in love with it at first sight, and signed the papers.

It was hard work and by August 2013 his business partner called it quits. Languidic was unable to find a replacement. Young people who want to become farmers are increasingly rare, he says. They prefer to work in cities where they can earn more.

Between May 2014 and January 2016, 32 cows on Languidic’s farm died of heart disease. With fewer animals producing milk, revenue quickly dried up. Languidic and his wife found themselves unable to keep up with mounting bills. The bank called to tell him the farm would move into foreclosure, and froze his bank account and credit cards. Languidic felt lost and hopeless. “I’m going to kill myself,” he told his wife more than once over the next few weeks.

One rainy winter day, he found a rope, tied a noose and threw it over a high beam in the barn. But something held him back. With the rope in his hand, he found himself unable to go through with it.

Languidic decided to share his thoughts and despair with family and friends. They assured him that his work was important, that France needed more people like him. The struggle continues for the Languidics. They remain deeply in debt, and running the farm costs €300,000 a year. But Languidic is hopeful. He and his wife plan to start a family.

Wilma van der Ploeg

Van der Ploeg grew up in the city, but decided to become a farmer at 18, after her father died. She studied agriculture at university, where she met her husband, Albert, also a farmer. She learned the trade from a dairy farmer, while her husband traveled to Canada to start his own career.

A year later, she settled in central France with Albert. They borrowed money to buy a farm on 60 hectares, and transformed it into a dairy farm with Charolaise cows. Their Gouda cheese production helped save the business when milk prices dropped and money got tight.

Albert died of a heart attack last September. He was 56. “The next morning I still got up early, and went into the field to check on my cows,” she recalls. She has given herself a year to see if she can keep afloat financially. She is heartbroken at the prospect of leaving the farm where she has worked for 30 years.

In her village, 25 percent of locals now vote for the National Front. Van der Ploeg disapproves, but says there is no longer any “respect for the work that we are doing.” In 10 years, she predicts, “it will all be gone.”

Noel Roze

Roze went into the farming business because his parents were farmers. His father died when he was eight. “My childhood ended. My mother made me help her as soon as he died. I became a man like that.” As a teenager in Malestroit, he wanted to follow his friends to university. His mother forced him to stay, he says, and he did.

He and his wife bought their farm in 2007. For the first five years, they were heavily in debt. They were hit hard by the 2009 milk crisis. In order to make a profit, he needs to sell milk at €350 per ton. That summer, milk was worth only €200. Things have improved, but at the current rate of €290, he is still losing money.

A few years later, he was diagnosed with cancer — a battle he managed to win. He says the cancer was likely brought on by his exposure to pesticides: He started working with pesticides, without a mask or gloves, as a 12-year-old.

He has pondered suicide a few times, he says. In 2009, the whole world seemed to be against him: He was heavily in debt, had two young children, and the bank refused to help him.

But while he is still living and working, suicide has touched his family. His cousin shot himself in the chest, and it was Roze who found him.

“The expression on his face was very strange. His eyes were wide open as well as his mouth. I will have this image in my head all my life. The following year it was very hard for me. I felt guilty.”

Noel thinks his cousin killed himself partly because of increased regulation on the industry.

He wanted to be left alone, to farm without restrictions. He had not wanted to become a farmer. His father forced him to go into the family business. He had wanted to travel.

Elizabeth Grad

The Grad family, originally from the Alsace region, came to Allier 30 years ago as travailleurs agricoles, or land workers. They bought a small farm and never left. They now own 280 hectares, and operate a dairy farm with 180 milk-producing cows.

Their main challenge is constant control from the PAC (politique agricole commune) and they live in fear of having to pay penalties for breaching rules. They deal with authorities at least three times a year.

Regulation, Grad says, is killing the farming industry. Grad also takes issue with EU standardization regarding cheese made of raw milk — regulating it would seriously undermine the French identity, she says.

The EU does not understand farmers’ concerns, or take into account the conditions that affect production in different regions, she says. The Allier region, for example, has very little grass during the summer. And cows that eat less grass will produce less.

But farmers are all affected by the same regulations. “I hope that people start starving, so they realize what it means to be a farmer,” Grad says.

Vivianne Alloin

Alloin is the mayor of Sazeret, a village of 160 people. Also a farmer, she owns 80 cows, all of which are bred for meat. However, she is not considered an organic farmer. She would rather keep the cows alive, but says it is not economically viable. Many French farmers have tried to build large farms with over 1,000 cows — a number still dwarfed by Germany, where farms tend to have closer to 3,000 cows.

There have been suicides in the Allier region. A farmer in the village next to hers recently killed himself, under pressure from debt and chronic illness.

Today, Alloin’s biggest challenge is the Russian embargo: Polish farmers no longer sell to Russia and have turned, instead, to Italy, where Alloin once did most of her business. The Italians are buying more Polish meat, she says, because it is cheaper, even though the quality is not as good.

She also notices great frustration with Brussels. “We are not allowed to cultivate our land the way we used to,” Alloin says. If she wanted to switch to farming grain, she would have to ask permission from the EU — which would be unlikely to grant it, given the surplus of cereal farmers. Fifty years ago, she says, farmers could produce the crop of their choice, as long as it was local produce. According to Alloin, “Brussels always fix everything so nothing changes.”

Over-regulation “will kill us in the end,” she says. She spends more and more time on paperwork, and the French consumption of meat has dropped 2 percent in a year. “We do not know which direction to go to, as we do not know if we are going to survive.”

But politically, leaving the EU is not an option either: “If we exit the EU, the first to suffer will be the farmers.”

Claude Raffray

Raffray grew up in Rennes, where his parents owned a small farm. After vocational school, he started working at 17. His passion was always milk production, and he now owns 45 cows. He tried to commit suicide during the milk crisis in 2009.

“We are not respected, people think of us as polluters, and destructors,” Raffray says. “Many people think that we do not treat our animals right. This is simply not true.”

Raffray disagrees with U.S. policies on animal treatment. The farms are too large, he says. It is important for the farmer to develop a good relationship with his animals. Raffray tries to feed his cows only high quality food, but because the value of milk is down, he has to watch his costs.

The day Raffray tried to commit suicide, he had felt harassed by regulation in Brussels. “You don't have the freedom that the peasants once had. You have to ask for everything.” The farmer is at the mercy of the local authorities, he says. There is too much paperwork, too many regulations.

Raffray's suicide attempt brought him closer to his family: “It is our families that allow us to continue to move forward, otherwise even more [farmers] would kill themselves.”

Raffray manages to pay himself €600 every month to live and take care of his children. He is currently trying to help pay for a car for his son, who is 18.

The way Raffray sees it, either the politicians change and start helping farmers, or they will start to revolt. “We are digging our own grave,” he says. “If the transatlantic treaty [TTIP] goes through, most of the agriculture sector will be destroyed. We won’t know where the food comes from, and that’s criminal.”