Jose Bove : French Activist Detained at JFK, Deported

An anti-globalization activist who was sent back to France after arriving at an airport here accused the U.S. government Thursday of conspiring against his cause and trying to protect big business.

Jose Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald’s restaurant in France in 1999, arrived Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport, planning to speak at an event sponsored by Cornell University, but was denied entry by customs officials.

Bove was not eligible to enter the U.S. under a visa waiver program, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Janet Rapaport said. She said she could not discuss why.

The program allows residents of 27 countries, including France, to travel to the U.S. for tourism or business for up to 90 days without getting a visa, according to the Department of State Web site.

Bove, 52, had planned to attend a gathering of farmers, labor advocates and academics in Manhattan Thursday and Friday, participating in such forums as ’’Fighting the Commodification of Food’’ and ’’The Struggle Against Monsanto in Europe.’’

U.S. agriculture giant Monsanto grows genetically modified soy, a key ingredient in many packaged foods. The U.S. accounts for more than half of all biotech crops grown worldwide.

’’This is an international struggle,’’ Bove said in a telephone interview Thursday from his farm in southern France. ’’The American government is fed up with this fight because such companies are losing a lot of money.’’

He spoke last year at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he said.

’’The fact that they don’t want me to come in now is a new way for the Bush administration to build coalitions against us,’’ he said.

Bove was not alone in his suspicions.

’’Evidently, the Bush administration is behind this decision,’’ said George Naylor, president of the National Family Farm Coalition. ’’No one would think of fearing Jose’s presence in this country except multinational corporations with a profit motive.’’

White House officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The activist said he will speak Friday at the Manhattan event from France via speaker phone.

Last November, Bove was sentenced to four months in prison for destroying a field of genetically modified corn planted by an American seed company in southern France in July 2004.

He also participated in protests during the World Trade Organization meetings held in December in Hong Kong, where he was briefly detained after arriving but allowed to enter following an intervention by the French consul general.

He shot to fame in 1999 after leading a group of protesters who dismantled a McDonald’s restaurant under construction in Millau, near his sheep farm. (AP)

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