When Jose Bove was growing up in Berkeley, Calif., he was particularly fond of American birthday cakes. "I thought they were fantastic," he says, "with all the icing and decorations and candles. What kid could resist that?" He was apparently less taken with hamburgers. Last August the radical French farm leader led a commando attack on a McDonald's outlet under construction in the southern town of Millau. Armed with crowbars, sledgehammers, wrenches and screwdrivers, these crusaders for the French way of life dismantled the fast-food franchise.
This week Bove is back in America, in Seattle for the opening of the...