THE OLD saying that the 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' often holds true and the French government is facing an investigation by the European Commission for trying to improve prices last year for milk, beef and pork.

At issue is a deal reached between the French farm minister, Stephane le Foll, and processors and retailers, to increase base prices in 2015. Not all processors, particularly of pork, agreed to go along with this - and it is this dissent that has triggered action by Brussels.

It is not new for France to be challenged over such arrangements. In the past it was fined heavily for attempts to control beef prices, underlining the danger in campaigns that target supermarkets to pay higher prices.

As a concept, this is good. But any collective action by processors or retailers is risky. This is made all the more acute by the fact that in today's harshly competitive retail sector, no major supermarket can afford to go it alone with a deal to pay farmers more.

That was the thinking behind the French arrangement to set a minimum prices at which dairy products, beef and pork would be bought from farmers. This set a price of around 25p per litre for milk, £1 per kg for pork and tried to increase beef prices by 15p per kilo across the board.

This was an ambitious plan and, while it was put in place with good intention, it soon proved to be the road to hell. A number of processors and retailers refused to play ball.

More worryingly for the French government, the German association representing dairy processors challenged its legality under EU Single Market regulations. This was a big factor in triggering the investigation by the European Commission.

France has been given until mid-February to respond to the initial complaint. Beyond that, it will drag on and could eventually result in big fines on French processors, which will eventually hit farmers.

In the past, this was not too bad an outcome, because of the initial gains price fixing delivered. However, this time around, because of how bad the price slump was and division between processors, it did not deliver for farmers.

It is, however, a salutary lesson for those campaigning for fairer prices that, no matter how well intentioned the campaign may be, it can easily led to a commission investigation and potentially damaging fines.

These actions by the commission can be looked at in two ways. Many in France will see officials in Brussels as people gazing down from an ivory tower, criticising efforts to tackle a crisis in farming.

Others will see the commission acting as a referee, protecting the single market and preventing the use of illegal state aids to give farmers in one member state special treatment.

What is certain is that commission officials often see the world as they want it to be. They then ignore - or fail to understand - the reality of farming being in a grim financial position.

This surfaced, recently, in a survey on the CAP, which questioned 28,000 people across the EU about how they saw agriculture and the support system.

We have all been a lot more sceptical about opinions polls since they got the General Election so wrong, but we have a natural tendency to like the parts we want to see - and blame pollsters for getting other parts wrong.

With this latest survey from Eurobarometer - the commission's statistical service - there is a sense that Brussels has phrased the questions to get the answers it wants.

On the positive side, a big majority of EU citizens, mostly outside agriculture, are happy with the amount going to farmers through the CAP, or want to see this increased.

Only a minority of around 13% want to see funding reduced.

Where, however, the commission got what it wanted was over greening, where it seems to be circling the wagons to defend a policy farmers and many politicians know is not working. The survey claimed 80% plus of people support greening.

Cynical me would be amazed if 80% of people actually understood what greening is, unless those carrying out the survey explained it to them - an explanation that would reflect the view from Bruseels that this is a great success.

A prime example, yet again, of the accuracy of that old adage of there being lies, damned lies and statistics.