Un unexpected aspect of equity: how the institutional proximity born within ‘North-South fair trade’ contributed to help French agriculture to cope with major contingent crises?[Un aspect inattendu de l'équité : comment la proximité institutionnelle née au sein du « commerce équitable Nord-Sud » a-t-elle contribué à aider l'agriculture française à faire face à des crises contingentes majeures ?]

Consumers worldwide are increasingly becoming aware of social, economic,and environmental consequences of their consumption and are modifying theirpreferences, attitudes, and behaviors accordingly. One significant movement that hasinfluenced consumption patterns globally is that of fair trade (Gillani et al. 2021). In thisarticle, in examining a French case study, we demonstrate that institutional proximity iscrucial for empowering relationships between consumers and producers in a fair tradeframework. North- North fair trade has recently developed by applying the sameprinciples as those of traditional North-South fair trade by reinventing not only theunbalanced relationship between consumers and producers but also by creating a spacethat is shared to varying degrees: institutional proximity.