As the UK fruit industry gathers to discuss its own swings and roundabouts at Fruit Focus next week, the French fresh produce industry will still be reeling from news of an EC inquiry into the possible receipt of illegal subsidies from its government.

While Interfel’s Remy Leprette struck a typically defiant note in comments to the Journal in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, the potential consequences for French producers do not bear thought.

Eleven years of subsidy repayments, maybe as much as e550m, with added interest, is some financial penalty. Without details, it is impertinent and impossible to speculate on the eventual impact on the industry. But two things are for sure - this cannot be good news for the already under-fire Chirac government or for any grower that received assistance from it between 1991 and 2002.

If analysts are right, and the practices that the French government is accused of are commonplace across the continent, we could have a very troubled period in store for European fresh produce. The UK, to my knowledge, would be unlikely to get dragged into any subsidy tangle, but customers and consumers here would soon notice the difference if chunks of central European production were to disappear.

It may, of course, never come to that, and the French growers would most probably do exactly as they have already suggested to us and ignore requests to pay back any monies received. But this investigation will make for interesting reading as it takes shape.

• Come and see us, on stand 14, at Fruit Focus.