Monsanto Wins Injunction
Sheep Farmer Leads 'Peasant Revolt' Against US Sanctions (France)
Home of Cheese Retaliates With a Tax on Coca-Cola
Protesters Destroy GM Test Sites (UK)
Jose Bove Jailed for GM Crop Attacks (France)
GM crop protesters cleared in test case (UK)
Paul Brown A blanket High Court injunction preventing anyone
interfering with 60 sites in Britain planted with genetically
engineered crops owned by the Monsanto company was granted last week.
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Caroline Monnot On August 20 a Montpellier court released on bail four activists belonging to the Confédération Paysanne (Peasant Confederation), a leftwing
farmers' union. They had been jailed for organising an attack on a McDonald's restaurant under construction in Millau, in the Aveyron département. Their action was intended as a reprisal against the United States decision, following the European Union's banning of hormone-treated beef, to slap a 100% import tax on Roquefort cheese. The trade unionists were each ordered to pay bail of 105,000 francs ($17,000) as a guarantee for the reconstruction of the restaurant. Return to TOP of page
Anne Swardson in St. Pierre-de-Tivisy Philippe Folliot scrapes the Roquefort cheese from his plate, spreads it on a
piece of crusty bread and takes a bite. "Roquefort is made from the milk of only one breed of sheep, it is made in only one place in France, and it is made in only one special way," Folliot explains. "It is the opposite of globalization. Coca-Cola you can buy anywhere in the world and it is exactly the same." As mayor of the southwestern French village of St. Pierre-de-Trivisy, population 610, Folliot is fighting for Roquefort cheese - and against the Americanization
of Europe. His weapon: a tax on Coca-Cola. Last month, the United States imposed 100 percent tariffs on a range of European food and luxury products, Roquefort cheese among them, in retaliation for Europe's refusal to drop its ban on American beef raised with growth hormones. Last week, Folliot and the St. Pierre-de-Trivisy town council responded with a 100 percent "tax" on bottles of Coke sold at the town campground and recreation center, doubling the price to $3.20. They vowed the tax would stay until the United States lifted its tariffs on Roquefort, which is produced only in this region of southwestern France. Elsewhere in France, and in Europe, there have been other anti-tariff protests against Coca-Cola, as well as McDonald's restaurants, in this latest in a series of trade conflicts between the United States and the European Union. A crepe restaurant in Dijon mustard country - mustard also was a victim of the U.S. trade sanctions - imposed its own tax on Coca-Cola. Demonstrators protested in front of the McDonald's on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. In nearby Millau, members of a small Roquefort producers' union ransacked a McDonald's. And in Auch, foie gras producers blocked the entrance to the McDonald's there. St. Pierre's town council members had economic reasons for imposing the Coca-Cola tax, even if it is largely symbolic. St. Pierre's 10 ewe's milk farmers are a crucial part of the town's fragile economy, and the higher tariffs- which were imposed in July and effectively doubled the U.S. price of the French products - will reduce Roquefort exports to the United States. But they also were standing up for France, and things French. They were standing up for food- natural food, pure food, French food. And, by inference, the French way of life. Return to TOP of pageMonsanto Wins Injunction
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 The Guardian Weekly , Page 10
Sheep Farmer Leads 'Peasant Revolt' Against US Sanctions
The Guardian Weekly 2-9-1999, page 26/From Le Monde
Home of Cheese Retaliates With a Tax on Coca-Cola
The Guardian Weekly 26-8-1999, page 28/ Washington Post
John Vidal
The Guardian Weekly 5-8-1999, page 10
At least two and possibly more small-scale test sites of genetically modified crops - in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire - were destroyed in raids by activists last week. The move takes the number of tests destroyed this year to more than 40. Four remaining government trial sites are, however, still intact. Forty-five people were charged last Sunday with conspiracy to damage crops at a Lincolnshire farm growing GM maize. Police said the 26 men and 19 women were charged in connection with incidents at Home Farm, in Spital in the Street. Those charged come from across the country, including Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Devon, Huntingdon, Bristol, Norfolk, Sutton Coldfield, Hampshire, Brighton, Bath and Norwich. Earlier in the week Lord Melchett, head of Greenpeace and former Labour minister, was released from Norwich prison on strict bail conditions but with "no regrets" for his raid on a government GM crop trial in Norfolk, or for the two nights he spent in custody after being arrested for criminal damage. He is due to appear in Norfolk for a court hearing this week, along with 27 other Greenpeace activists who were charged after the action. The police, farmers and companies creating GM crops face an almost impossible task in protecting the sites. There is a broad band of people trying to destroy the plants before pollen is naturally dispersed in the next few weeks. Last week the Government said it might have to test GM crops in secret, but this is seen as practically impossible and goes against industry and official guidelines, which state that all growers near sites should be informed about GM tests. Identifying the culprits in the febrile climate surrounding GM foods is becoming harder. Protesters range from middle-class strangers to activism and organic farmers, to students, anarchists and environmental and "genetic" groups. During the past few weeks crops have been destroyed after public rallies, by people working by night and staying anonymous, by membership groups and by those openly seeking arrest. The GM issue, along with globalisation of commerce, is top of the agenda for the burgeoning environmental justice movement in Britain. "This is developing into a broad social and civil democracy movement," says Michael Mason, a London university lecturer. "Its targets now range across global institutions, corporations and inner cities to transport, food, pollution, and all the traditional targets of environment groups."The authorities are worried about the trend. A police report last week stated that the riots in the City of London on June 18, when violent individuals took action alongside peaceful environment protesters, signalled "a new era of violent protest".
BBC Europe
Tuesday, 19 November, 2002, 14:51 GMT
José Bové©Linda Dawn Hammond 2001
French radical farmer Jose Bove will
be sent to jail for 14 months for two
offences of destroying genetically
modified (GM) crops.
Bove had been seeking to have his
sentences of six months and eight
months overturned, but France's
highest court, the Cour de Cassation,
ruled against him.
It said he should serve the six-month
sentence for a 1999 attack on a field
of GM rice near the southern city of
Montpellier.
The decision automatically meant that
he should also serve the longer
sentence, for a similar attack in
1998.
Appeals
He will not have to go to jail until
formally notified of the court's
decision.
Bove said he would appeal to French
President Jacques Chirac to pardon
him.
"Of course we cannot ask him to
overturn the verdict, but he has the
power to stop the sentence being
applied," he said in a statement.
"The ball is in his court now."
His lawyer, Francois Roux, said he
would also be appealing to the
European Court of Human Rights.
Bove, a sheep farmer from near Millau
in southern France, shot to national
prominence after leading protesters in
tearing down a partially-built local
McDonald's restaurant in 1999.
McDonald's sentence
He and his supporters have undertaken
a series of raids to destroy fields
where the crops are grown, in what
they say is a struggle for the "right
to live in a healthy environment".
Last month he was fined 3,000 euros
for an attack in 2000 on a field near
the southern French town of Gaudies.
France grows experimental GM crops on
about 100 sites, all of which have
been approved by the government.
His attack on the McDonalds restaurant
earned him 61 days in jail, which he
completed in August this year.
Paul Brown
The Guardian Weekly 25-10-2001, page 8
Protesters who pulled up genetically modified crops had their convictions quashed in the High Court last week in a ruling that will make campaigners who destroy genetically modified crops hard to prosecute. The protesters' success means that attempts by the crown prosecution service to use an offence of "aggravated trespass" as a way of stopping protests will not be allowed. Several pending trials may now have to be scrapped. The aggravated trespass charge was included in the 1994 Public Order Act to allow the arrest of road protesters who were interfering with contractors. But Mrs Justice Rafferty said the same charge could not be used against crop campaigners because there was no one in the fields they were attacking.
At the centre of the case was Rowan Tilley, 42, from Brighton, who had been convicted by Cambridge magistrates in June last year of aggravated trespass after pulling up crops. Later, after destroying other crops in Dorset, she was acquitted in June this year by Weymouth magistrates on the same charge. Both magistrates' decisions were the subject of last week's appeal.
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