Arson attacks on fast-food outlets baffle Paris police

Arson attacks on fast-food restaurants in the Paris suburbs are puzzling French police, who believe the fires may have been motivated by either a political or personal grudge.

Three restaurants belonging to the French-owned Buffalo Grill chain in the southern suburbs, including one that housed the company's headquarters, were set alight at the weekend. A McDonald's restaurant at Cergy, west of Paris, was badly damaged early yesterday when a car was parked outside the service entrance and set alight.

The three Buffalo Grill attacks were clearly linked, police believe. The assault on the McDonald's might also be related but is, at present, being treated as a separate case.

One theory being examined by investigators is that the attacks are related to the war in Iraq. "This could be the work of idiots who believe that Buffalo Grill is an American company," one public prosecutor said.

Another line of inquiry is that the attacks, on restaurants mostly associated with beef, may be linked to the protests of French beef farmers against a decision by the European Commission this month to punish the main French farmers' union for illegally fixing beef prices.

Buffalo Grill is already in serious legal and financial trouble after claims that it illegally imported British beef during the European Union embargo caused by the BSE crisis in 1996. The restaurant chain has a Wild West theme but was created by a French entrepreneur. It has a policy of selling only cheap, non-EU, beef.

McDonald's in France sells largely French beef but has become a target of disgruntled farmers and political activists in France as a symbol of world-wide American cultural and economic power.

The third theory of investigators is that the McDonald's fire is unrelated and that the Buffalo Grill attacks were motivated by a personal grudge, arising from the criminal investigation of the company's activities during the BSE crisis.

The three Buffalo Grill restaurants in the Essonne département south of Paris burst into flames between 2am and 3am on Saturday. Seven employees were still in the restaurants at the time but escaped unhurt.

Two of the stricken restaurants were the first opened by Buffalo Grill's founder, Christian Picard, in 1981. This, and the fact that one of them is atcompany headquarters, may strengthen the hypothesis of a grudge attack by a former employee, investigators said.

Formal criminal investigation of leading executives of Buffalo Grill started in December for allegedly importing British beef after it was banned by other EU countries in 1996. The executives were accused of fraud but also, controversially, of manslaughter, for allegedly causing the deaths of four French victims of the new type of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of BSE.

Evidence for the accusations came mostly from disgruntled former employees, who have been counter-sued by the company. Defence lawyers, scientists and the French press have criticised the manslaughter accusations as baseless.

Scientists say the incubation period for variant CJD is so long that the French victims could not have been infected by meat eaten in any Buffalo Grill restaurant after the EU embargo was imposed. The Paris appeal court is expected to rule on 28 April that the manslaughter accusation should be dropped.