ANTI-GM ACTIVISTS IN FRANCE DESTROY A STATE OWNED TRANSGENIC VINEYARD

Last night, about sixty anti-GM activists armed with sickles and scythes destroyed a small transgenic vineyard owned by the National Institute for Agronomy Research (INRA) in the town of Colmar, in the Alsace region. The “reapers” who came from all over France, destroyed a little more than 20 meters of a transgenic vineyard and as soon as they had accomplished their mission, they informed the press. Police and gendarmes were on the spot immediately. They surrounded the vineyards and arrested about fifty people, who were brought to the Commissioner of Colmar for recognition and registration and released the following morning.

“Very serious damage was done”, said the president INRA in Colmar, Jean Masson, “for research. We work for the State and these sick people have destroyed everything. They are stopping progress”. “We have acted non-violently, out in the open”, said Olivier Florent, an anti-GM activist. “Public money funds GMOs in France and these tests are carried out in the open field, which we absolutely do not want.” The destroyed vineyard was the same one that in September 2009 had been cut at the roots by one man acting alone, who was sentenced in November to a fine of 2,000 euros. INRA had appealed the sentence because they thought it was too light

The attack on the vineyard in Colmar reminds us of the attack in Italy on a field of corn in Venice last August 9th, by a group of anti-globalists. The activists came from Friuli and Veneto and destroyed a field in Vivaro (Pordenone) where on April 30, 2010, after a pro-GMO campaign broadcast when the Friulian farmer Giorgio Fidenato sowed GMO “Mon810” corn in front of a live web camera.