“…By the summer of 1997, French public policy on agricultural GMOs was in total disarray and this had important economic and political implications (Marris, 2000a). This surprised many stakeholders, because until 1996 all potential conflict seemed to have been resolved, in France, through the construc-tion of an apparently effective "sciencebased" regulatory system (Gotweiss, 1998;Roy, 2000;Roy and Joly, 2000). In contrast to some other European countries, notably Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, public policy was broadly supportive toward the development of agricultural biotechnologies; the media showed very little interest in the topic; there were no significant campaigns by French non-governmental organisations (NGOs) representing environmental or consumer interests; no debate in agricultural circles; and no visible controversy among scientists about the risks associated with GMOs.…”