Paris - The French government yesterday sought emergency advice from the country's food safety agency on lifting a ban on British beef, a government official said.
However, the agency was not expected to issue an opinion for 10 days, the official said. The government's move followed new guarantees obtained by Paris on the labelling and testing of British beef to appease French concerns over contaminated beef.
The food safety agency started a trans-Channel dispute in October by advising Paris to maintain a ban on British beef exports initially imposed by the EU in March 1996, to protect consumers against "mad cow" disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which had jumped species and become Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease in humans, a brain-wasting illness.
France and Germany were the only EU member-states to retain a ban that the European Commission had ordered lifted last August.