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Collective Action and Civil Disobedience: The Anti-GMO Campaign of the Faucheurs Volontaires

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Civil disobedience has hitherto enjoyed only a relatively marginal place in the repertoires of French social movements, but has recently emerged as a key rallying frame for social mobilization, especially among environmental and counter-globalization movements. This paper examines the theory and practice of civil disobedience in the French context through an analysis of one such movement, the anti-GM Faucheurs Volontaires. Discussing the highly controversial campaign's positioning as ‘civic disobedience’, the article examines contested discourses of violence surrounding crop destruction, and the state responses to action, before asking what the campaign's claims to Republican civism mean for traditional notions of the relationship between state and challenging groups in France. It argues that framing action as civil disobedience is central to attempts to construct political and popular legitimacy, in terms of the campaign's national, international, and sectoral goals.

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Notes

  1. Quoted in ‘Une amende symbolique contre sept antipub’, Libération, 9 March 2007.

  2. ‘Faucheurs volontaires: Monsanto défend “le droit à la recherche” des OGM’, AFP communiqué, 10 December 2005.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Argument set out by Bové during his participation in a public debate on the opening day of the ‘Avelin 11’ trial, Lille, 29 September 2005.

  5. ‘Campagne pour le respect des droits syndicaux’, Confédération paysanne, November 2002.

  6. See ‘Les Stars se mobilisent contre les OGM’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 16 January 2003.

  7. Riesel, ‘Aveux complets des véritables mobiles du crime commis au CIRAD le 5 juin 1999’, http://www.lnalhooq.net/LNALHOOQ/SiteDebord/Gaautressitus/Riesel/Riesel_08_02_201aveuxcomplets.html, posted on 8 February 2001.

  8. ‘Honte aux hommes de mauvaise volonté’, Communiqué de presse, FNSEA, 6 November 2006.

  9. ‘Monsanto France condamne les nouvelles actions violentes’, Communiqué de presse, Monsanto, 16 August 2006; ‘Dominique Bussereau condamne avec vigueur les destructions d’OGM de Miradoux', Communiqué de presse, Ministère de l'agriculture et de la pêche, Paris, 20 August 2006; ‘Faisant fi de la décision de justice, prise à leur demande, les opposants aux OGM s’acharnent sur les essais Biogemma à Antoingt!', Communiqué de presse, Limagrain, 28 August 2006. Limagrain is the parent company of Biogemma.

  10. ‘Ça suffit!’, Communiqué de presse, FNSEA, 4 September 2006.

  11. See in particular ‘Les clandestins des OGM’, Le Monde, 1 March 2007.

  12. Bové quoted in ‘José Bové tenait son premier meeting de campagne à Aubagne’, Midi Libre, 8 February 2007.

  13. Cited from Ott's testimony at the trial of six ‘faucheurs volontaires’, Riom, September 2005. Témoignage d'Hervé OTT au procès de Riom, http://www.monde-solidaire.org/spip/article.php3?id_article=2522, posted 14 November 2005.

  14. Evidence given by the Avelin 11, Lille, 29 September 2005.

  15. Quoted in ‘La Fierté des Paysans’, Campagnes Solidaires, 202, December 2005.

  16. See online Q&A ‘chat’ with CP national spokesman Régis Hochart, 23 January 2007, http://www.confederationpaysanne.fr/index.php?rubrique_id=452&corp=afficher_chat&id_chat=1. Accessed 27 January 2007.

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  1. School of Languages & Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK

    Graeme Hayes

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Hayes, G. Collective Action and Civil Disobedience: The Anti-GMO Campaign of the Faucheurs Volontaires. Fr Polit 5, 293–314 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200122

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