The Roquefort Files -- cont.

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Outside Magazine June 2001

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The Roquefort Files -- cont.

THE MONTPELLIER district courtroom is small. To the left sit the McDonald's Ten, their army of attorneys (paid for by the Confédération Paysanne), and their families and friends, including Bové's parents, small and white-haired, who watch cross-armed from the back of the room. To the right sit the prosecutor and representatives of the print media (no cameras, please). Strains of festive zydeco and reggae waft in from the plaza next door, where the mad cowcostumed, sign-waving crowd ("Liberez Les Inculpes!"; "Cannabis, C'est Bon!"), will soon swell to 15,000.

Inside, the three justices, one woman and two men in black robes and white cravats, sit at a high bench. Above them looms a huge fresco of a bloody dead body in a toga, a guilty-looking miscreant, and a buxom puella holding the scepter of justice.

Bové's scraggly codefendants look more like Aerosmith than farm boys. They are here to demand equal punishment for Millau, instead of the individual sentences they received last June, which ranged from nothing to three months. "We want either three months for all or nothing for all," Sanchez said earlier. "It's a group thing."

It is the intention of the defense to paint the farmers as the conscience of the nation, citizens whose acts of civil disobedience, while perhaps technically illegal, are nevertheless forgivable cries of truth in an otherwise ruthless and technocratic world. Meanwhile, in the hostage case, the prosecutor will demand that Bové's suspended sentence for detaining the agricultural officials be replaced with real jail time.

The chief justice motions for Bové to approach the bench and give a statement on the hostage affair. "Je suis un paysan," Bové intones with some bravado. He says that he only wanted to discuss with the officials their disappointing position on European Union farm policies. "We closed the doors and kept them from leaving in a symbolic way," he says. "We knew we couldn't hold the hostages long because we were in a prefecture surrounded by riot police." Judge: "Could things have gotten out of hand?" Bové: "No, it was a pacifist thing. We held a mutton roast on the lawn!"

In the afternoon, the chief justice summarizes the McDonald's incident: He mentions the tractors, the forklifts, the graffiti spray-painted, the doors removed. Bové is the first to take the stand. "McDonald's," Bové says, "is the symbol of standardization of food. What we did was like the Boston Tea Party." The prosecutor, a burly man, is turning red, but it's not his turn to speak.

"McDonald's is a French investment," the chief justice argues, "with local jobs, local meat, local produce." Then he switches tack. "What did you think of the headlines saying you sacked the place?"

Bové: "It was an exaggeration. We didn't sack it. We dismantled it."

Judge: "What does 'dismantle' mean? When you took off the tiles, some of them broke."

Bové: "What did it mean when they dismantled the Bastille?" The crowd guffaws.

The prosecutor can't help himself. "Stop fooling around," he commands Bové.

When he finally gets his turn, he paces artfully. "Outside is a carnival," the prosecutor says, waving his arm toward the wall. "But inside is a Republic. This is a country not just of Roquefort, but of human rights. People have different opinions regarding globalization. Yes, there is a crisis in agriculture in France, but it's not clear whose fault that is. Monsieur Bové is a nice person, but he's guilty! I ask for a doubled sentence for Monsieur Bové, six months in jail, with three months suspended."

The chief justice appears to be sound asleep.

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