Even less "loving thy neighbour" in rural France

It was a story that first appeared here on NP last month involving a young farmer, Jean-Hugues Bourgeois, and the campaign of violence and intimidation that had been launched against him by others from within the local community.

The setting is the farm on which he raises goats to produce organic cheese in the hamlet of La Boge, which forms part of the village of Teilhet (population 300) in the Auvergne region of France.

The hope in September - certainly from Bourgeois' point of view when he contacted the media - was that increased interest in his plight through national coverage and the launch of a police investigation would see a quick and peaceful resolution to a situation that was threatening to spiral out of control.

Sadly that has not turned out to be the case, and at the weekend a 250m2 barn on the property he farms was raised to the ground, destroying all the hay and grain for his animals as well as a tractor.

As Bourgeois told the media last month, his problems started in March this year, when a local farmer who had befriended the "newcomer" and was close to retirement, offered him the chance to rent an extra 50 hectares of prime land to expand the business.

"Things started to take a turn for the worse when I was given the chance to rent a little more land than perhaps someone who was an outsider and something of a 'marginal' might ordinarily have had," he told TF1 news in September.

That interview - and many others Bourgeois gave - came after several months during which part of his herd of goats had been shot, graffiti had been daubed on his house, tyres had been punctured, fires had been set in outbuildings causing loss of animal feed and finally an anonymous rape and death threat had been made against his wife and eight-year-old daughter.

Bourgeois took his plight directly to the media, mainly because he felt his case wasn't being taken seriously by either the local mayor or the police.

And indeed national coverage led to the opening of an official investigation.

But that didn't prevent this latest incident from happening. And Bourgeois, who is now reluctant to go into detail about what he thinks were the causes of the fire or give interviews, feels that there is a connection between what happened over the weekend and his earlier decision to speak out.

"I'm paying a high price for having broken the code of silence," he told the national daily Le Parisien.

"I've been advised not to say any more," he added.

The 29-year-old might not be willing to say anything, but at least some of his neighbors now appear more inclined to talk.

"He's a brave man," one of them told the newspaper. "To put up with all that has happened and to stay is amazing.

"We're all convinced that this latest fire was not an accident."

But the theory that this most recent incident is linked to the previous ones, or that a member of the local farming community might be behind the attacks and threats, is still not one the mayor of Teilhut, Bernard Duverger, is ready to endorse.

He's insists on urging restraint before jumping to conclusions.

Last month, before the police started their investigations Duverger said that although he condemned the actions that had been taken against Bourgeois and he had undoubtedly been a "victim", there was nothing to prove that the culprit had been one of the other local farmers.

And in Monday's Le Figaro, Duverger offered much the same sort of advice.

"If it's accidental it's an unfortunate coincidence. If it's a criminal then it's part of a relentless campaign against him and his family," he said.

"Until we know how this fire was started, we need to remain calm."

Much the same response has come from Pascal Palayer, a spokesman from the regional police as a forensics team sent the farm to pick through the ashes.

"It's another element in the case," Palayer confirmed. "But we have to be careful about making accusations, and about the theory of criminal intent."

Bourgeois still insists - just as he did one month ago - that he intends to stay put. But he also admits that he hasn't been able to sleep since the latest incident.