Paris

French government ministers have sprung to the defence of scientists who claim to have been harassed and threatened with violence after they authored a controversial report for the Academy of Sciences on transgenic plants.

In a joint statement issued earlier this month, Claudie Haigneré, junior minister for research and technology, and Luc Ferry, minister for youth, national education and research, condemned the attacks “without reserve”. They said that the methods of intimidation — at which they expressed “astonishment and sadness” — were unacceptable and were an attempt to stifle open debate on the issue of transgenic crops.

The report was submitted to the science ministry last December. It called for “reasoned and careful” introduction of transgenic crops, on a case-by-case basis, as well as an increase in research into the crops that is commensurate with their agricultural and industrial importance.

These conclusions drew criticism from opponents of transgenic crops, who challenged the report's independence. Critics accuse the authors of being active proponents of transgenic technologies. But the ministerial report says that such claims are an attempt to discredit the report's conclusions, and demonstrate “a confession of ignorance or weakness” in the arguments of those who made the threats.

Writing in French newspaper Le Monde earlier this year, academy president Etienne-Emile Beaulieu called on the government to defend “the honour of scientists attacked in their mission of delivering independent and educated information to society”.

Roland Douce, director of the Institute of Structural Biology in Grenoble and the report's main author, has been a principal target for the threats. He told Nature that such was the ferocity of the critical reaction that he would now think twice before giving public advice in the future.