A year ago, few people had ever heard of Jose Bove, a member of the Confederation Paysanne who led "commando raids" on a genetically modified food research centre and a McDonald's restaurant. But three weeks in prison, his handlebar moustache and a penchant for talking to television cameras soon made him a folk hero.
Bove became a symbol of the French preoccupation with food safety - often irrationally linked with national pride in cheese made from unpasteurised milk and disgust with US-style fast food culture. Vandalism charges notwithstanding, he was received by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin at the Matignon and was filmed chatting with President Chirac at the Salon de l'Agriculture last winter.
On June 30th, France's best known goat farmer will go on trial in the little southern French town of Millau charged with "destroying, degrading or seriously deteriorating" property. There is a record number of applications for press accreditation.
In the same month that Jose Bove was arrested, a scandal over the use of sewage sludge in the production of animal feed further raised French interest in food issues. Speaking to the National Assembly on May 9th, Prime Minister Jospin cited public health and consumer protection first among the issues that could bring Europe closer to its citizens.
He defined France's three main priorities in food safety as working for the establishment of a European Food Safety Authority, promoting reflection on the "principle of precaution" and the adoption of concrete measures in the labelling and traceability of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
Despite their own less than brilliant record, French officials see themselves as leaders in food safety and claim they originated the idea of a European Food Authority. Plans for the EFA were, in fact, outlined by the Irish EU Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, in a January 2000 white paper.
Mr Byrne hopes that, by drafting scientists from national food authorities to the EFA, conflicts between Brussels and EU member states over food safety can be avoided. One such disagreement - between French scientists at the Agence Francaise de Securite Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA) and the EU's scientific steering committee - led to France being prosecuted in the European Court of Justice over the French ban on British beef while Paris holds the EU presidency.
The Jospin government has gone to great lengths to reassure its population on the safety of French beef, making a virtue of an EU requirement for increased testing of animals at risk of contracting BSE by quadrupling the number of animals requested by the EU to 48,000 and starting the research programme this month, six months before required. In the EU-wide attempt to establish the real incidence of BSE, only Ireland was quicker than France to adopt the Swiss method of systematically testing all cattle that suffer accidents, fall ill or die inexplicably.
France is the most outspoken opponent of GMOs in Europe. If the present moratorium on GMOs ends, French officials insist they will not allow food containing GMOs to be sold unless clearly labelled. A few weeks ago, 300 hectares of fields planted with GMO "contaminated" seeds were destroyed on the "principle of precaution" - although less than 1 per cent of the plants were thought to contain GMO varieties.
The "principle of precaution" combines the French fondness for philosophical debate with genuine fears about food safety. It means that the presence of scientific uncertainty - for example concerning GMOs - should not prevent politicians from acting.
Until now, European governments tended to do nothing until a danger was proven. If the French principle is taken too far, other EU governments fear, it could distort trade.
