[2005-12-09 20:45]
PARIS (Reuters) - The Orleans Criminal Court (Loiret) has acquitted 49 of people who voluntarily broke two parcels of genetically modified corn in 2004 and 2005.
The court found that they had acted "to respond to the state of necessity that results from the danger of uncontrolled spread of genes from genetically modified organisms, the dissemination of which had been authorized by French law, contrary to the constitutional right to a healthy environment".
The deputy Vert Noël Mamère, himself sentenced to Toulouse for similar events, welcomed a "great victory" and a "historic first".
"It is on the will of the President of the Republic has been introduced the charter of the environment in the Constitution and that becomes constitutional the precautionary principle," he told Reuters.
"For the first time in the history of justice, a French court has given a legal consistency to this principle and it is a great victory of the law."
Noël Mamère is now calling for a definitive end to GMO crops and a democratic debate in Parliament on the subject.
The American firm Monsanto, owner of the two parcels destroyed, had claimed 398.000 euros in damages.
