French GM critics urge Jospin to ban GM crops
Date: 10-Sep-01
Country: FRANCE
Author: Sybille de La Hamaide
In an open letter to Jospin's government, the Confederation Paysanne also demanded the destruction of all GM crops already planted. "Let's stop causing damage," they wrote.
In the last two weeks, Confederation Paysanne - joined by ecologists and other activists - has cut down eight fields of GM maize to protest against the testing of bio-engineered plants in France.
Militants said they would chop down a GM maize field in Auverse, in western France, on Sunday afternoon.
The announcement of the place and the time of the attack came as a surprise as Confederation had promised this week to be more discreet over future operations after more than a hundred police in anti-riot gear blocked their attempt to ransack GM crops in southwestern France last weekend.
"If farmers and a majority of French and European citizens are opposed to GMOs, it is not through ignorance but because they are against (seed) companies' imposing their views regardless," they said.
The union also asked Jospin to organise a debate on GM crops and their consequences, but it stressed it should not be rushed.
"We have time: neither the world in general nor farmers in particular are impatient because they have not asked for such technology," they wrote.
Confederation Paysanne, supported by anti-globalisation campaigner Jose Bove, launched its campaign to destroy GM fields in June after the French farm ministry published a list of districts in France where GM plants were being tested.
The campaign received a boost in late July after the French food safety agency AFSSA released a report saying it had found GM traces in several conventional crops around the country.
GM crops are common in the United States, but France and other European countries remain highly reluctant to sanction new genetic technology in agriculture. France nonetheless grows experimental GM crops on more than 100 sites.