Reuters | By Thierry Leveque | November 21, 2002
PARIS - France's top appeals court ruled this week that militant farmer and anti-globalisation activist Jose Bove should go to jail for 14 months for destroying genetically modified crops.
The walrus-moustachioed, pipe-smoking Bove, a celebrity in France for high-profile campaigning against what he regards as sub-quality food, said after the ruling that he planned to ask President Jacques Chirac for a pardon.
"Of course we cannot ask (Chirac) to overturn the verdict, but he has the power to stop the sentence being applied. The ball is in his court now," Bove, dubbed France's Robin Hood, told reporters.
The Cour de Cassation in Paris ruled that Bove must serve a six-month jail sentence and 7,622 euro ($7,717) fine for a 1999 attack on a field of genetically modified rice grown for research near the southern city of Montpellier.
The decision automatically meant Bove, who spent six weeks in jail earlier this year for smashing up a McDonald's restaurant, must also serve a separate eight-month sentence for an earlier attack on genetically modified crops in France.
The jail sentences could start as soon as this week.
MEDIA-SAVVY SHEEP FARMER
Bove's lawyer said a number of "personalities" were writing to the authorities to ask for clemency for the media-savvy sheep farmer.
He and his followers have led a series of attacks on genetically modified (GM) crops in France in recent years. He is spokesman for the radical farmers' union Confederation Paysanne.
Bove wore a girl's frock to one court hearing as a traditional peasant protest and rode to prison atop a tractor earlier this year to serve a three-month jail term.
While GM crops are common in the United States, France and other European countries remain highly suspicious of using the new genetic technology in agriculture. Confederation Paysanne says the risk of cross-pollination between natural crops and what Bove calls "seeds of death" is being underestimated.
France grows experimental GM crops on around 100 sites, all of which have been approved by the Farm Ministry.
Supporters say the crops could lead to the development of hardier strains to help feed the world's poor. Opponents say they could trigger an uncontrolled spread of modified genes, harming insects and humans, and point to polls showing widespread public resistance.
Bove's lawyers have sought in vain to use the argument that fear of a health risk from the crops justifies citizens taking the law into their own hands and destroying them.
The Cour de Cassation said in its judgment that Bove and fellow protesters Rene Riesel and Dominique Soullie, who were also given prison terms, had many means of expression at their disposal in France's democratic society without having to resort to attacking the crops.Reuters:
