Agence France Presse 
February 8, 2001

Frenchman Bove calls GM crop destruction "battle for future" 

BY Bernard Degioanni 
MONTPELLIER, France

French anti-globalisation activist Jose Bove on Thursday called the
destruction of thousands of genetically-modified plants a "battle for the
future" in a court appearance here. 

Bove is on trial with two other defendants from his radical Peasant
Confederation (CP) for destroying 3,000 genetically modified rice plants at
an international research lab in June 1999. 

All have admitted destroying the crops to denounce what Bove called
"publicly-funded research that works hand in hand with food companies. 

"There is no difference between public and private research. That is a
trick they would like (us) to believe in," Bove told the court. "It's
technology for technology's sake and progress for progress' sake." 

When asked by the court why he had wrecked the plants, he called his
actions a "battle for the future." 

Bove and his two CP colleagues, former CP national secretary Rene Riesel
and regional spokesman Dominique Sollier are accused along with about 150
others of destroying several thousand experimental rice plants at an
institute in Montpellier in June 1999. 

"GM foods have no use, neither for farmers nor consumers," he told
journalists in the southern French town before the trial began. 

And he warned his judges that his conviction would merely prove that "the
justice system is favorably disposed towards GM crops." 

The case began under strict security, as area roads were sealed off and
parking banned with reports circulating that up to 5,000 of his supporters
may turn up. 

The CP said it had tried to turn the trial into a "party" by organizing a
farmers' market and various street events surrounding GM foods. 

If convicted Bove and his two colleagues could be jailed for up to five
years for the assault on Cirad, an internationally-funded research
institute in Montpellier. About 150 people destroyed 3,000 plants at the
institute in 1999. 

Cirad is also claiming four million francs (610,000 euros, 565,000 dollars)
in damages. 

Bove was among the leaders of anti-globalisation protests at the World
Trade Organisation conference in Seattle in December 1999. 

He has already been sentenced to three months in prison for ransacking a
McDonald's fast food restaurant in his hometown of Millau, southern France,
earlier that year. 

His appeal against that sentence will be heard in Montpellier on February 15.