French farmer awaits jail decision

Bove has come to symbolise anti-globalisation in France

PARIS, France -- French anti-globalisation farmer Jose Bove is to hear on Wednesday whether his three-month jail sentence for trashing a McDonald's restaurant will stand.

The country's highest appeals court, the Paris-based Cour de Cassation, is to rule whether the original guilty verdict and its threatened jail term should be overturned.

Bove and his fellow defendants were sentenced to jail for attacking the site of a planned new fast-food outlet in the southern French town of Millau in 1999.

He said the action had been "legal and necessary" in response to punitive U.S. taxes on Roquefort cheese and other European farm goods.

A spokesman for Bove's Confederation Paysanne farm union said there was a "strong likelihood" that the court would confirm the guilty verdict but suggested Bove could still evade jail.

If the verdict is upheld, the case will bounce back to a regional prosecutor who will then have to decide whether to put Bove and his fellow defendants behind bars.

Jean-Emile Sanchez, one of the defendants, said: "It's a sensitive time, given the approaching elections.

"Maybe it's not the best time to have a person like Jose Bove in jail."

Bove has seen his legal problems mount in recent months.

A lesser appeals court sentenced the activist to six months in jail in December for hacking genetically modified rice plants in a 1999 raid on a research centre.

Bove has also taken that case to the Cour de Cassation, but a verdict is not expected before the end of the year.