New authorisations for 13 GM trials to be run by Syngenta, Pioneer, Librophyt, Biogemma, Monsanto and BASF were recently announced by the French Ministry of Agriculture; 2006 witnessed 17 trials.

Among the 2007 trials will be 12 for maize and one for tobacco while another for potatoes was not agreed by the Commission du Genie Biomoleculaire. The Commission received more than 26,000 comments in a recent public consultation but said that none of them prompted a revision of the decision. One wonders what those 26,000 plus inconsequential comments contained.

The Ministry added that EU rules on GM organisms will be adopted by “by the end of March”. The EU will be able to levy heavy fines on France if the rules are not enacted soon but the French government faces political problems by organised opponents of agricultural biotechnology.

One of their leaders is José Bové, a presidential candidate who has been jailed for anti-GM vandalism. If elected, he wants to change those words in "La Marseillaise" demanding that "impure blood" soak France's fields. One suggestion is that he changes them to “impure seeds”.

Sources:

France allows 13 GM trials for 2007; to adopt EU rules by decree by end-March (19.3.07). Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2007/03/19/afx3530120.html)

Seeds of change (30.3.07). Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1a806dcc-de5b-11db-afa7-000b5df10621,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F1a806dcc-de5b-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ft.com%2Fsearch%3FqueryText=Seeds+of+change+)

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