Agence France Presse | August 26, 2001
Montelmair, France -- Protestors led by Jose Bove's Peasants Confederation destroyed two cornfields in southeastern France on Sunday as part of a long-running
battle against genetically-modified (GM) crops.
"I ask you not to use violence against the security forces but to be violent to the crops," an organiser told the 150-strong crowd gathered at the fields near Montelimar.
"If you're detained by police, you have nothing to say. I'm counting on you to leave the fields clean and in good shape," he told the throng, equipped with sickles, clippers, secateurs and other farm tools.
Radical farmer Bove, who has attained folk hero status in France because of his high-profile opposition to rampant globalisation, called in July for a campaign of "civil disobedience" unless the government ordered by August 12
the destruction of all genetically-modified crops being grown for test purposes.
Within a few minutes, the assembled men, women and children had moved into the 1,000-square-metre (1,000-square-yard) field and cut the corn before the police, who had been warned by the owners, had time to reach the scene.
Protesters from the Peasants Confederation, the Green movement and the anti-globalisation association ATTAC also erected placards reading "No to GMs," "GMs = Danger" and "Contaminated Zone".
Regional Green Party official Jean-Marie Chausson said the tests, mostly to study the plants' resistance to weed-killer, "should at least be carried out in confined spaces", rather than in open fields.
Bove was sentenced in March to a 10-month suspended prison term and fined for destroying a field of genetically-modified rice plants in 1999.
The sheep farmer turned activist has justified his action as "a battle for the future".
