Associated Press | July 10, 2003
PARIS (AP) - French militant farmer Jose Bove's jail sentence will be reduced by four months in this year's traditional Bastille Day clemency, the government said Thursday.
Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant under construction in 1999, was jailed last month to serve 10 months for destroying genetically modified crops.
The sheep farmer activist will benefit from a blanket reduction of sentences granted by President Jacques Chirac on July 14. Bove had time shaved off a sentence last July 14 for the McDonald's attack.
The decree, signed by Chirac on Wednesday and released on Thursday, subtracts seven days for every month prisoners have left in their sentences, with a maximum reduction of four months. That will take 70 days off Bove's jail term.
In addition, Bove will get a further reduction of two months, allowing him to leave jail in mid-December. He can also request a conditional release from prison once half his sentence is served.
The blanket reductions announced Thursday will affect about 3,000 prisoners in France. Inmates convicted of terrorism, drug trafficking and other serious crimes are not eligible.
Bove was taken into custody late last month to serve two sentences: six months for destroying genetically modified rice in June 1999 and four months for ruining maize crops in April 2000. The jailing triggered protests by hundreds of his supporters, who are demanding he receive a pardon.
Bove is a leading member of Farmers' Confederation, a militant group that campaigns against globalization, GM crops and other issues affecting the world's rural population.
Bove shot to fame after leading a group of protesters who dismantled a McDonald's restaurant under construction in Millau, near his sheep farm in southern France, in August 1999.
After years of denouncing ``foul food'' - including genetically modified crops and fast food - Bove has increasingly taken up other causes, including that of the Palestinians.Associated Press:
