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Forwarded message:
From:   [log in to unmask]
Date: 96-01-17 16:10:35 EST

          PARIS (Reuter) - French farmers took two live cows into a
sedate Paris museum Wednesday, startling security staff and
visitors with a muck-spreading demonstration against the use of
hormones in beef.
          European farmers have promised to fight a threat by the
United States to take legal action against an eight-year-old
import ban by the European Union against beef raised with
special growth hormones.
          The farmers attempted to take Gertrude, weighing three
quarters of a ton, and her veal calf Laurette, up two floors in
a lift to display them alongside stuffed animals at the Natural
History Museum, where hundreds of schoolchildren are taught the
ways of nature each week.
          Museum staff intervened, forcing the farmers to retreat to
the main hall where they and the fully-functioning cows held an
incongruous press conference under the skeleton of a 40-foot
whale. Police were not called.
          ``Nobody needs hormones in meat -- neither consumers nor
farmers. We want the European Union to keep banning imports of
hormones, otherwise this museum is where animals like these will
end up,'' Laurent Cortier, who raises cattle in the Champagne
region, told journalists tipped-off about the invasion.
          The United States says there is nothing wrong with beef
raised with approved hormone treatments. The European Union
warned Tuesday it was prepared to risk a trade dispute with
Washington over the issue.
       ^REUTER@