Rome (Reuters) Genetically Modified (GM) crops are no cure for world hunger but solely exist to benefit multinational corporations which patent GM seeds, French anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove said.

“Genetically modified organism (GMOs) are no answer to hunger,” Bove, an Asterix the Gaul figure with a walrus moustache who has become a trademark hero of the anti-globalisation movement, told Reuters late on Saturday.

“It is just that big multinationals want to control all the rights to seeds. With their patents on GM seeds, they can impose on the global farming community the seeds that they sell,” added Bove, who shot to world fame when he sacked a McDonald’s site in France in 1999 to protest against US tariffs.

Bove, who has attacked experimental GM fields in France, said: “ A plan to stop GMOs is needed. All patents on life should be stopped.”

“GMOs do nothing for famine. They do not enable farmers to produce more because GM seeds are more expensive,” he said, referring to farmers being obliged to buy patented GM seeds.

Bove was speaking during a march in Rome of thousands of anti-globalisation activists from across the world demanding world leaders change tactics in the war on hunger.

The activists included farmers from poor countries who opposed GM crops. Some carried banners reading, “No to transgenic crops”, “No patents on life” and “Hunger is not a problem of means, but of rights.