010374 French Farmer Sentenced For McDonald's Attack

Montpellier, France - A French appeals court ordered rebel farm leader Jose Bove to serve three months in jail for wrecking a McDonald's restaurant, but the activist said he would appeal to France's highest court.

The walrus-moustachioed Bove achieved international prominence in 1999 after he led a group that trashed a McDonald's in southern France in protest against U.S. tariffs on French delicacies such as Roquefort cheese and foie gras.

The court in Montpellier, southern France, upheld a lower court's sentence of three months in prison. Bove, a sheep farmer, had appealed against the sentence while the prosecution had asked for a six-month term for the McDonald's attack.

Bove, who walked free after the court did not remand him in custody, said he would appeal the sentence to the Cour de Cassation, which reviews convictions on procedural grounds.

“I remain confident and serene,” Bove, sporting a rumpled striped shirt and smoking a large, droopy pipe, told reporters as he left the courthouse to the cheers of supporters.

“For us, the struggle continues more than ever,” he added, saying he was not afraid of prison and noting he was headed to Geneva on Friday to help plan new anti-globalisation protests.

Thursday's ruling drew an immediate condemnation from the Communist-led CGT, France's most powerful trades union, and the environmentalist Greens, partners in the French government.

The Greens called the verdict a provocation and said in a statement that the assault on the McDonald's showed how society was “trying to find a new means of expressing its protest against the excesses of globalisation”.

LESS OF A CARNIVAL

While Bove's previous court appearances have drawn thousands of protesters and taken on a carnival-like atmosphere, Thursday's event was more subdued with only 100 or so well-wishers gathering outside the courthouse.

Bove, who has compared his sacking of the fast-food restaurant to the 1789 storming of the Bastille, remained adamant that he should not be punished for acting in what he regarded as the public interest.

“The law sees us as guilty of acts that we consider legitimate,” he said.

Prosecutors had urged the appeals court to uphold the law even if Bove and his radical supporters justified their act in the name of a political cause.

On a separate count, the court ordered Bove to pay a fine of 6,000 French francs ($815) for having helped lock up Agriculture Ministry officials in an office during a March 1999 protest.

Bove has become something of a regular at Montpellier legal proceedings. Last week, a court there handed him a 10-month suspended sentence for destroying genetically modified rice plants during a 1999 assault on a research centre.

Hailed as a Robin Hood figure by his army of fans, Bove has skilfully mobilised radical farmers and tapped French prejudices against America and its fast food -- for which he popularised the term “la malbouffe” (lousy food).

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