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In response to the agricultural crisis, the French Third Republic and Imperial Germany developped a protectionist tariff policy at the end of the xixth century. The aim was not only economic but also political: the integration of the rural classes into national politics. In France, the Republicans sought the support of the rural population, whereas it was the conservative German parties forming the government, especially in Prussia, which found their electoral basis in the countryside. As a consequence of extraordinary economic growth and an expanding population, agrarian protectionism took an “aggressive” character in Germany, dividing agrarian and industrial classes. In France, by contrast, as a consequence of smoother demographic and economic developments, such protectionnism brought together the middle classes as the basis of the Third Republic.