French Prime Minister Mr Lionel Jospin blamed lax standards in Britain's veterinary system for the mad cow crisis today as BSE and foot-and-mouth disease continue to ravage European farming.
Telling farmers his government had never blamed them for the outbreaks, he said mad cow disease was "less the fault of intensive agriculture than of the relaxation of British veterinary controls and the privatisation of these services."
The Socialist leader also implicitly criticised Britain over the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak when he vowed to act decisively to stop the epidemic crossing the English Channel.
"We want to avoid finding ourselves in that situation," he said.
Mr Jospin met a delegation of concerned farmers in Bourges, an agricultural town in central France, where he was campaigning ahead of March 11th municipal elections.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a brain disease of cattle thought to cause the fatal human condition Creutzfeld Jakob Disese, is thought to have spread from Britain through contaminated animal feed and animals.
When potentially contaminated beef was found on French supermarket shelves last year it caused a panic which saw prices drop off rapidly and precipitate a financial crisis in the French industry.
Europe's latest outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which is harmless to humans but highly contagious to sheep, pigs, cows and other livestock, was detected in Britain on February 19th, 20 years after its last appearance.
France has imposed strict controls on the import and movement of meat and livestock in an attempt to stop it spreading to continental Europe but animals containing antibodies to the disease have been detected and Health Minister Bernard Kouchner warned it would be a "miracle" if France was spared.
AFP