France weighs in over German BSE crisis

PARIS, France -- France's farm minister has said the resignation of two German ministers over the mad cow disease crisis was the price Germany had paid for its "head-in-the-sand policy."

In an interview with the French daily Le Monde, Farm Minister Jean Glavany said he did not believe that the German government had deliberately misled its citizens.

But telling them the country's cattle were not at risk of contracting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was "a rather incomprehensible head-in-the-sand policy."

Health Minister Andrea Fischer and Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke on Tuesday became Germany's first senior political casualties of the crisis over the disease.

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Glavany also had sharp criticism for "three or four countries" -- veiled references to Germany, Italy and Spain -- for blocking European Union moves to implement extra preventive measures.

"These last few years, three or four countries have, through a blocking minority at the heart of the EU farm council, prevented various sanitary measures from being taken in the fight against bovine spongiform encephalopathy, alleging they were not concerned by the illness," he told Le Monde.

Glavany has long denounced the three countries for failing to admit there was a risk that BSE was present in their herds.

He noted that together with France, they imported tonnes of British meat and bone meal at the height of the crisis.

"Obviously, the governments which during a long time hid the truth to public opinion are in greater difficulty than those who opted for total transparency, even if this transparency can also be very expensive," the paper quoted Glavany as saying.

France reported 161 cases of BSE in 2000, more than five times the number detected in 1999.

Scientists have linked BSE to a human version, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease -- a fatal, brain-wasting disease that has killed at least 80 people in Britain and two in France.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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