A momentous event has taken place in my life: for the first time I have supported a winning cause! In June, they locked up José Bové, the French radical farmer who rose to fame in 1999 by dismantling a partly-built McDonalds in the South of France, near Millau. The man is a bit of a People’s Hero in France, and there was a campaign to ask Chirac for a presidential pardon on the occasion of Bastille Day. I thought I’d write to Jacques and ask him to let José go. Now it didn’t quite work out that way, but a week ago, they freed him after he’d served 2 months of a 10 month sentence.
And they must be kicking themselves now, because here he is, rousing the Popular Masses ( and I mean masses of them, over a hundred thousand) at Larzac 2003 this weekend!
For what, petty vandalism? Ooh, wait, I know, for trying to shield French farmers from the pernicious effects of competition with American beef and then whining like a baby when the U.S. slaps tariffs his pwecious Roquefort cheese.
Gah. It’s enough to make me want to start calling them “Freedom Fries.”
whao whao whao…
Jose Bove acts like an idiot, he might have good ideas and 'want-to-do-good" but he still acts like an idiot…
And Jeevmon, relax, he is far from being only after the US. Try not to become egocentric here and see the big picture, he complains a lot about Europe… In fact he complains a lot… about a lot.
I believe that McD in Europe tends to use locally produced meat and vegetables. That’s what they do in Sweden at least. The french site (www.mcdonalds.fr) seems to discuss the ingredients but since my French is fairly close to non-existent I’ll have to ask someone else to check if they say anything about the origin of the meat and vegetables.
So, Bové isn’t “protecting” the average french farmer very well by protesting McD, if they buy French meat, is he?
Actually, Zazie, the event that supposedly prompted the demolition of the McDonalds was a tariff that the U.S. had slapped on the import of Roquefort cheese, which Bove allegedly produces when not rabble rousing. The tariff was, in turn, authorized by the WTO after it determined that Europe was in violation of the WTO agreement by refusing to allow imports of hormone-treated American beef.
Since McDonalds is not known as a big user of Roquefort cheese, I’m not sure what the demolition of the McDonalds (which, as has been pointed out above, uses French products, and also employs French citizens) was supposed to symbolize or represent. But vandalism hardly rises to the level of great heroism.
You are right jeevmon.
I totally agree that the demolition of the Mc Donald (or anything else for that matter) was just stupid and uncalled for.
But my point was that this man is just angry at pretty much everything anyway!!
Right, I have a few minutes to deal with this now.
José Bové’s direct action is only meant to be symbolic and attract attention to the various causes that he espouses. In other words, they’re publicity stunts. The thing is that he’s stunningly good at publicity stunts. He’s a very media-savvy guy, and that is the reason for which he has become a figurehead for the various currents that form the antiglobalisation movement. Only an important detail is that he isn’t actually in favour of antiglobalisation. In French he’s known as an altermondiste, or if you like he’s in favour of alternative globalisation, an important difference.
As you say, he does indeed have a gripe with just about everyone, not just the US. He doesn’t even have a particular grudge against McDonalds. His really big bogeyman is the WTO, and it was the US’ slapping of a 100% tarriff on Roquefort and the WTO endorsement of this that he dismantled a partly built McDonalds near his place in Millau in 1999. Roquefort is after all what he and his chums do for a living. And it had the desired effect: it brought massive and lasting media coverage to him and the various causes that he has supported for over 30 years.
Now his main problem is with agriculture, but he’s remarkable in that his theses apply theoretically to every last farmer in the world, his political and economic thought goes far beyond simply protecting his Roquefort-making chums. I’ll go into more detail later if you like.
Mainly though, I just really like his style. I mean you can’t argue with all the stuff about rebalancing the scale to stop the EU and US dumping our agriculture on the rest of the world, screwing our environments through a massively productivst agricultural model, all the social justice stuff and so on. But I like the way that he’s a proper, uncompromising militant who won’t pay lip-service to anyone, stays out of any organised politics, and is a permanent thorn in the side of many of the arrogant Powers That Be. Whether that’s McDonald’s, the WTO, the French government, other agricultural organisations, etc.
I just admire his bloody-mindedness. A week out of prison and he brings out two to three-hundred thousand people out for a picknick, rock-concert, political rally, hippie-commune thing.
Whoop de do. His “symbolic protest” resulted in very real property damage. Ergo, he is a vandal. A vandal is no less a vandal simply because he has a manifesto.
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Which shows that he’s an idiot on top of being a vandal. If the WTO never existed, the story would have played out exactly the same way, except that the U.S. would have imposed the tariff faster. So Bove would have been worse off because he would have lost the months of export revenue that he earned while the WTO was deliberating and reaching its decision. The U.S. certainly doesn’t need the endorsement of the WTO to impose overt or covert import restrictions. Just ask Vietnamese catfish farmers, African textile workers, and steel manufacturers from anywhere but the USA. And if there were no deliberative process for resolving these disputes, the temptation to raise punitive tariffs would be greater, not less.
And then striking out at McDonalds for it? What the hell does McDonalds have to do with tariffs on cheese?
He’s gotten a lot of undeserved attention and should have been made to serve out the length of his sentence like any other criminal.
Just because having the WTO is better than not having doesn’t mean it’s a good system. It could be a hell of a lot better and fairer.
Like it or not, McDonald’s is viewed by many as a a very concrete manifestation of American economic and cultural imperialism, of the imposition of a worldwide standardised food culture at the expense of diversity. So people weren’t too bugged by the dismantling of a McDonald’s branch. The McDonald’s in question opened on time anyway, as the damage caused was pretty minor. Besides, McDonald’s isn’t short of a dollar or two. Losing income from Roquefort for a month could put a producer out of business, but I doubt that delaying the opening of a “restaurant” in a place like Millau mattered much to McDonald’s.
I am well aware of the fact that a lot of people consider the USA/McDonald’s/whatever the source of all evil. Apart from the fact that McDonald’s does not equal the US government or the country, it also does not bear responsibility for killing of diversity. They are offering a product and if people did not want to eat there they would go out of business very quickly. So if you want to blame someone, blame the customers who for some reason prefer a quick hamburger over a meal at some other restaurant.
What does it matter if some “people” weren’t too bugged by the destruction of someone else’s property? There are people who are bugged by it. The owners of McDonald’s for example and the local entrepreneur who manages/owns the restaurant. The people who were going to work at the restaurant may feel bugged by the vandalism as well and prospective customers who may have looked forward to eating there are bugged as well.
The fact that the Mcdonald’s corporation has a lot of money does not IMO make it ok to destroy their property.
Bové and people like him are vandals even if they dress up their destruction of other people’s property in the language of anti globalisation.