At the end of June this year, an estimated 30,000 people gathered in the small town of Milau in Southern France for a carnival-style event convened as a protest against "trade globalisation, industrial farming and the power of multinational world companies".
The "carnival" was organised to coincide with the two-day trial of 11 members of the Confederation Paysanne, a small trade union involved in the dismantling of a McDonald's restaurant in Millau in August 1999.
Sheep farmer Jose Bové, a 47 year old activist with a long history of environmental protests, led the attack which was prompted by the US government's decision to impose a 100% tax increase on some French products in retaliation for the European Union's ban on hormone-treated beef. One of the products affected was Roquefort cheese, which Bové's farm helps to produce.
Bové served just three months in prison for his part in the "Big Mac attack" and has become a folk hero in France. He has been feted by politicians such as French prime minister Lionel Jospin and President Jacques Chirac, who just a month after the attack itself publicly endorsed Bové and spoke against allowing "one single power" to "rule undivided over the planet's food markets".
This case is just one of the many much publicised anti-globalisation demonstrations that have recently taken place around the world.
And Professor Tim Lang from the Centre for Food Policy at Thames Valley University says the Bové case has lessons for this country: "Britain has a rich history of food riots there were the bread riots in the 1800s so what happened in McDonald's in France should not be surprising to anyone in Britain."
Lang is one of growing number of academics who are convinced the future will see the growth of a different kind of activist. And the victims will not be fast food outlets, but global consumer brands.
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