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Julian Cole

This homme burgher is a hero to me

The traditional Frenchman can be a wonderfully annoying sight, somehow ridiculous and yet so inspiring. Jos Bov fits the bill, with a huge drooping moustache and teeth that glint when he smiles.

He is described as stocky and straight-talking, and he certainly looks that way, though I confess I've never heard him speak. Anyway, I wouldn't understand a word if he did, as my French is rust-encrusted, despite the best efforts of two recent holidays in the country. Sadly, Channel-hopping was out of reach this year.

Normally the politics of France is not the stuff to excite me (you'd be better off talking to my academic brother about such lofty matters), but Jos Bov, a farmer who raises sheep for Roquefort cheese, interests me because he is standing up against McDonald's, the multi-national purveyor of burgers.

French farmers are often in the news, sometimes for following that old Gallic tradition that sees them inviting British lorry drivers to impromptu roadside barbecues, with the unavoidable invitation to bring your own lorry-load of lamb.

The obstructive and destructive ways of French farmers are not to be encouraged, but I couldn't help but warm to Mr Bov and his antipathy towards McDonald's. Wrecking one of the burger-chain's restaurants was going a little far, I'll grant you that. Yet how inspiring to see a Frenchman who cares so much about food he is prepared to make a stand against the Americanisation of the world's diet.

Mr Bov led a group of farmers who trashed a McDonald's that was being built in the small town of Millaun, north of Montpellier, and earned a spell in prison.

What is surprising about this story is that his bail of £10,500 has just been met by hundreds of well-wishers from all over France.

Can you imagine that happening in Britain? We'd just leave Mr Bov's English equivalent in jail, while celebrating our deep indifference with a cardboard fast-food meal. More surprising still, Mr Bov has become the folk hero of the moment in France, earning support across the political spectrum, from the Greens to the far-right nuts of the National Front. Even the prime minister, Lionel Jospin, has said "Mr Bov's cause is right."

That is quite a comment. Just imagine Tony Blair offering support to, say, a small Yorkshire farmer who smashed up a McDonald's in a similar protest, perhaps in relation to the beef crisis. I suspect you would not hear a squeak out of our prime minister were such an occasion to arise.

Mr Bov and other small farmers, the cheese-makers, fruit growers, goat herders and raisers of poultry of rural south west France, fear that McDonald's illustrates the threat of global dominance. And how true. For multinational fast food chains are a curse of the modern world.

When they arrive in a country, they flatten local traditions by introducing bland food that tastes the same the world over, and is without local flavour (or any flavour, if you ask me - but don't tell my children). Of course, life is never as simple as the likes of Mr Bov and this column would have you believe. France is already full of McDonald's out-lets, and I'm sure that French children love eating the boring burgers and chips, and nag their parents about going.

Still, even if there is a danger of the world turning into one enormous fast-food joint, at least the French have a strong enough attachment to their stomachs to occasionally stand up for decent food, and kick up a fuss.

A question in a children's trivia game asks for the name of the composer who continued to write great music after he went deaf. When the answer of 'Beethoven' is given, our five-year-old, remembering a film she liked, says: "How did he do that when he was a dog?"

16/9//99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.