Bove's jailing becomes new protest

Bove has come to symbolise anti-globalisation in France

PARIS, France -- Celebrated French environmental activist Jose Bove turned his jailing for an attack on a McDonald's restaurant into another colourful protest.

The radical French farmer with a penchant for pipe-smoking and publicity left his home in a convoy of tractors on Wednesday on a 100-kilometre parade to the prison at Villeneuve-les-Maguelon, near the southern city of Montpellier, to serve his three-month jail sentence.

The nine other activists also convicted in March 2001 for the trashing of a partly-built McDonald's at Millau, France, accompanied the 49-year-old walrus-moustachioed folk hero. Because he was the protest leader, Bove was the only one sentenced to a prison term.

Bove told a swelling posse of journalists en route: "Three years after the dismantling of the McDonald's of Millau, Europe is still condemned for having refused beef with American hormones. Is it normal to go to prison for that?"

The seven tractors, police outriders and media vehicles rolling through the southern France countryside advanced at a stately pace, ensuring Bove would miss his 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) appointment at the prison by several hours.

Bove, who attends civil rights and anti-globalisation protests worldwide, exhausted the appeals process last year after being sentenced to three months in 1999 for attacking the half-built McDonald's in protest at U.S. trade policy.

Because of fear that Bove's fate could become an electoral issue, justice officials had said they would not enforce a three-month sentence until Sunday's second round of legislative elections ended two months of voting for president and parliament.

He received a summons on Monday morning to go to jail on Wednesday.

Bove had already spent 19 days in jail while under investigation and could end up serving just 40 more days if he behaves himself in prison, the union's Dufour told Reuters.

Members of his Confederation Paysanne trade union have met representatives of France's highest-profile anti-globalisation group, Attac, to discuss how to mobilise public opinion in support of Bove.

"By targeting from the outset a symbolic figure of the social movement, before the new parliament even meets, the government is signalling its intention of violating union freedoms and blocking debate," Confederation Paysanne said.

Bove tried to justify the McDonald's attack by saying the action had been "legal and necessary" in response to punitive U.S. taxes on Roquefort cheese and other European farm goods.