Wall Street Edgy as anti-McDonald's Campaigner
Jose Bove Gains Popularity in Europe

July 6, 2000
Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

A Child of Seattle

Globalization went on trial in southern France last weekend alongside 10
vandals who pillaged a McDonald's restaurant there, led by the now famous
Jose Bove. The 10 accused do not contest the fact that they willfully
attacked the fast-food outlet, causing more than $100,000 of damage.

Mr. Bove's two-day trial in the picturesque southern town of Millau, site
of his attack last August, turned into a carnival as thrill-seekers
converged on it from all corners of France and the world. The Transport
Ministry saw fit to make extra trains available to transport every
troublemaker who wanted to attend the "happening." The army was then
pressed into service to maintain order. Friday night, an
anti-globalization concert attracted 45,000 to Millau, whose residents
are usually more drawn to two not-very-Green pursuits: hunting and bull
fighting.

In the end, the prosecutors recommended a slap on the wrist for the
vandals, while globalization was found guilty of heinous crimes -- as
charged by the vandals. How did we get here?

The media in France gets part of the blame for lionizing Mr. Bove. Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin hardly distinguished himself when he called Mr.
Bove's fight just. But at least part of the blame should go to Bill
Clinton. Just a week after the Seattle meeting of the World Trade
Organization, at which the forces that the President had invited "to sit
at the table" rioted and disrupted the proceedings, we visited with a
disillusioned senior French official who muttered dark omens. "This is a
big disaster for us, you know," he sighed. "Now we're going to have Jose
Bove's face on TV all the time." How right he was.

By allowing his union friends and others to run riot in Seattle, lest
they be less than energetic in getting out the vote for Al Gore this
November, Mr. Clinton has unleashed a force that will be hard to control.
Some senior trade figures are beginning to wonder if the WTO can continue
to press for freer trade. The gangs that sacked Seattle are now gearing
up for an assault on the Republican and Democratic party conventions.

At the Bove trial, print press and television reporters almost stopped
using the word saccager, to sack, to describe the events of last August
any more. Rather, they adopted the defense's more sanitized term of
demonter, to disassemble. While depicting Mr. Bove as a French Robin
Hood, the media turned a critical eye instead on Examining Magistrate
Nathalie Marty, who wanted to throw the book at Mr. Bove. "If because of
a certain ideology we start justifying defacements, why not excuse
terrorist acts? It was the accused who upset the public order, not I."
Brava, Madame Marty!

Mr. Bove, for his part, said McDonald's had "provoked" him into action by
opening an outlet in the village. Afterward, he called the trial a
"joyful feast," and declared Millau the capital of a World Citizens
Organization to oppose the WTO.

McDonald's closed its doors during the two days of the trial, "as if to
excuse itself for still remaining there," as Le Figaro put it. And though
the French penal code asks for a maximum sentence of five years in jail
and a 500,000-franc fine, the prosecutors recommended suspended sentences
for the 10 and an 18-month probation for Mr. Bove. At least one
prosecutor was honest. "How will we be able to judge if thousands of
people are screaming outside the name Bove?" asked prosecutor Alain
Durand before the trial.

Mr. Bove's name is being mooted as a potential presidential candidate in
2002, and his moral victory this weekend won't hurt. The Bakunin-quoting
former hippie who only became a farmer in 1975 as a political act has
shown that he understands how to manipulate symbols, fears and public
opinion. Even if he doesn't run for president of France, the world should
realize that it must from now on learn how to deal with this French child
of Seattle.