Radical French farmer Jose Bove, sent to jail earlier this month for ransacking a McDonald's fast-food restaurant, will have to stay there despite an amnesty granted for hundreds of lesser crimes, a French minister said on Sunday.
France traditionally grants an amnesty for petty criminals following presidential elections and parliament is about to vote on a new one following Jacques Chirac's re-election last month.
The walrus-moustachioed Bove, an anti-globalisation folk-hero sentenced to three months for attacking the restaurant with other farmers, had hoped to receive an amnesty pass out of jail on the grounds it was an action backed by his Confederation Paysanne farmers' union.
But Justice Minister Dominique Perben was not impressed. "Mr Bove does not qualify for an amnesty as things stand today because it was an aggravated action carried out with others," Perben said on LCI television.
"Traditionally an amnesty can be granted for actions carried out as a result of a trade union dispute, but not if it is an aggravated crime in the legal sense."
Bove, who has won support at civil rights protests worldwide, exhausted the appeals process last year after being sentenced to three months jail in 1999 for attacking the half-built McDonald's in protest at U.S. trade policy.
When the media-savvy farmer eventually went to prison in the southern city of Montpellier earlier this month, it was at the head of a convoy of tractors applauded by passers-by.
Bove says he is the victim of politically motivated justice and has pledged to continue his fight against globalisation while inside jail.