French Activists Attack Genetically Modified Crops

Published on Monday, July 26, 2004 by Agence France Presse

Some 1,500 activists, led by radical French farmer Jose Bove (L), rip up a field of transgenic corn in Levignac, near Toulouse, southwestern France, July 25, 2004, in a symbolic protest against genetically-modified organisms (GMO). European consumers remain largely hostile to biotech foods. REUTERS/Georges Bartoli. TOULOUSE, France - Hundreds of activists opposed to genetically modified crops tore out rows of maize in south-western France Sunday and threatened similar future actions of "civil disobedience" to stop the cultivation of bio-engineered food. The group of 1,500 was led by Jose Bové, a noted French anti-globalization activist who shot to prominence after helping pull down a McDonald's outlet in 1999 to protest US trade policy and junk food. Others taking part included a number of public officials from the Green party, among them Noel Mamere, a deputy and mayor of a suburb in Bordeaux who has made headlines of his own for presiding over France's first homosexual wedding. They gathered in a field owned by US biotech company Pioneer Hi-Bred International and ripped the maize by the roots as police who had been ordered not to intervene stood by and watched.