Paris, Nov 28: Thousands of French farmers, with animals in tow, gathered under the Tower on Thursday for a last ditch defence of Europe's farm policies before a key world trade meeting next week. With cows, sheep, pigs and horses crammed into makeshift pens beneath France's most famous monument, some 8,000 members of farm unions waved banners at bemused tourists and vowed to reject any effort to question European Union farm subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks due to start next week in Seattle."Are we going to let them impose their concept of things on us? No!" Eric Thirouin, secretary-general of young farmers' union CNJA told the crowd. "We will refuse a globalisation-banalisation of products, farming, agriculture, tastes. "
"We will affirm our agricultural model, our specificities, our identity," said Luc Guyau, head of France's mainstream FNSEA farm union."That's why for the FNSEA there is no question of putting the (Common Agricultural Policy) into question at the WTO."
The EUhas resisted a demand from the Australian-led Cairns group of major food exporting countries to work for an end to all farm subsidies if a new round of global trade talks is launched in Seattle.
French farmers, who get the most subsidies from the EU's huge farm budget, argue that their goods cannot be treated like ordinary industrial products. They want European negotiators at the Seattle talks to hit back at US farm subsidies and to protect the EU's methods of supporting its farmers.
France is the world's fifth-largest wheat producer and its second-largest grain exporter.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.