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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 13, 2002

France to Maintain British Beef Ban

The French Agricultural Ministry announced on Tuesday it will not lift the ban on British beef in the next three months because it still does not have assurance that the meat was safe from mad cow disease.


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The French Agricultural Ministry announced on Tuesday it will not lift the ban on British beef in the next three months because it still does not have assurance that the meat was safe from mad cow disease.

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The government will not address the ban between now and the end of the general election in April and May, said France's newly- appointed Agriculture Minister Francois Patriat.

The European Commission had ruled last December that France acts illegally by continuing the three-and-a-half-year ban on British beef, which most of European countries have lifted in the summer of 1999.

"The ruling was based on procedural grounds, not on matters of substance," said Patriat, who was nominated in February to replace Jean Glavany who was chosen by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to head the cabinet of his campaign for the presidency.

France will not yield to British calls because it does not have full data of the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease in Britain's herds, said the minister.





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