In the years that followed, pork prices continued to plummet. There were farmers' protests, marked by a desperate violence; tons of slurry were dumped on the Esplanade des Invalides, a number of pigs were gutted in front of the Palais Bourbon. At the end of 1986, the government announced emergency relief followed by a recovery plan for pig-breeders. In April 1987, Valerie's father sold his farm —for a little more than four million francs. With the money from the sale, he bought a large apartment in Saint-Quay-Portrieux, where he planned to live, and three studio flats in Torremolinos. He had a million francs left over which he invested in unit trusts and was even able —it was his childhood dream— to buy a small yacht. Sadly, and with some disgust, he signed the farm bill of sale. The new owner was a young guy, about twenty-three, single, from Lannion, just out of agricultural college; he still believed in the plans to revive the industry. Valerie's father was forty-eight, his wife, forty-seven; they had dedicated the best years of their lives to a hopeless task. They lived in a country where, compared to speculative investment, investment in production brought little return; he understood that now. In their first year, the rents from the studio flats brought in more money than all his years of work. He took up crosswords, took the yacht out into the bay, sometimes fishing. His wife found it easier to adapt to their new life and was a great support to him; she started to want to read again, to go to the cinema, to go out.