Antiglobalization Woodstock on the road to Cancun

THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER August 12, 2003, Issue #277 Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest Perspective

THOUSANDS GATHER IN FRANCE IN "ANTIGLOBALIZATION WOODSTOCK" TO DISCUSS WAYS OF INFLUENCING CANCUN, MEXICO WTO TALKS

JOHN TAGLIBUE, NEW YOUR TIMES: Call it a summer camp for antiglobalization crusaders.

Tens of thousands of people, young, old and in-between, [August 8] heeded the call of organizations opposed to the way the global commerce is being reorganized and gathered on this sun-baked, wind-swept plateau in southwest France [Causse Du Larzac] to discuss ways influence the coming round of World Trade Organization talks in Cancún, Mexico, in
September.

It was a Woodstock against globalization. Environmental groups, trade unions and opponents of nuclear energy and the wars in Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya handed out pamphlets. Rock bands and circus acts performed and vendors hawked local specialties from sausages to wine to pungent Roquefort cheese, which is manufactured in a nearby village.

Being French, much discussion revolved around the menace to diversity in the food world, as globalization opponents contend that the rules of commerce empower giant multinationals to crush the small farmers who produce the hundreds of varieties of French wine and cheese.

Among the stars of the show is José Bové, the 50-year old sheep farmer, union leader and national hero for his refusal to bow to globalization. Mr. Bové, who has been serving a 10-month prison sentence since February for destroying genetically modified rice in 1998, was paroled last week.

"In France, there has never been a public debate, never a discussion

of
the mandate" given to the European Union for the Cancún round of talks, he said in an interview. "It's something being done on the backs of the people."

Mr. Bové, a wiry, mustachioed man pale from his jail cell, said the main topics of the three days of debate, which end Sunday, would essentially be the Cancún agenda: farming, services, intellectual property rights in food and medication, and projected accords on international investment, which he called tantamount to a "surrender of all sovereignty."

President Jacques Chirac of France has been anxious to include nongovernmental organizations in the debate leading up to major global meetings like Cancún. Mr. Bové, clad in a T-shirt that read, "Other Worlds Are Possible," said this weekend's events, which the organizers hope will draw as many as 100,000 people, was an appeal to Mr. Chirac to draw a broader public into the discussion. "We need a general debate," he said.

Many of the organizations that came encapsulated resistance to the social changes that are sought in France by Mr. Chirac and his conservative prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

Daniel Retureau, director of international institutional relations for the General Confederation of Labor, among the most radical French trade unions, said many French linked global liberalization with efforts by Mr. Raffarin, at the behest of the European Union in Brussels, to put pensions, health care and education on a sound financial footing. "Brussels says competition," Mr. Retureau said, "but it's privatization."

Mr. Bové and other organizers chose Larzac because of its notoriety in the 1970's when local farmers went to jail resisting French government plans to expand a local military base. A decade of stubborn resistance ultimately led President François Mitterrand, after his 1981 election, to drop the plan. The peaceful victory established the plateau and its farmers as symbols of opposition to government dictate.

The big gathering took place only a short distance from the town of Millau, where in 2002 Mr. Bove organized the bulldozing of a McDonald's restaurant to protest the Americanization of France. He spent six weeks in jail for that escapade.

Gwyn R. Williams, a Cambridge University anthropology student who is writing a thesis on Larzac, said local farmers saw themselves as offering hospitality for a broader cause, including, for instance, "farmers who lose the right to plant their own seed, because multinationals control the seed."

And because the commercial liberalization favored by the World Trade Organization is generally associated with the United States, he added, they generally viewed the Cancún agenda as "the Americanization of the entire planet."

Lori M. Wallach, the director of Global Trade Watch at Public Citizen in Washington, said she would stress in the debates the "two hottest topics " at Cancún, namely proposed accords governing international investment and procurement. Many critics attack them because, she said, "they expand the notion of one size fits all" by imposing uniform standards globally. The accords have met resistance from developing countries, but are favored by the United States and the
European Union.

French critics of the Cancún agenda, she added, were "more aware of quality of life issues than Americans," including for instance the quality and diversity of food products. "In the United States, it's more of an economic reaction."

And indeed, one reason for the choice of Larzac, one of France's best known gastronomic regions, was to underscore that concern.

Pierre Caron, 72, a retired schoolteacher from the Vaucluse region, slurped oysters under an umbrella with Daniele Alvernhe, another former teacher. The oysters were sold by one of many food vendors that dotted the sprawling campsite. Their main concern, both agreed, was the future of French culture and education, which was undermined by a drive toward privatization.

"We believe the accords at Cancún would by very profitable for private investors," Mr. Caron said. "Our system's not perfect, but we need more discussion."