French Farmer Advertises Against Advertising

A French organic farmer has forked out 3,000 euros (2,100 dollars) for a series of billboard advertisements that denounce the evils of advertising.

Twenty-five of the giant ads went up this week across the southwestern town of Agen showing a human brain stuffed with advertising images and carrying the slogan "Advertising is manipulating you - React!"

Fifty-six-year-old farmer Pierre Kung explained that he was implementing the martial arts technique of "using the strength of the adversary to floor him."

"My aim is simply to get people to ask themselves questions. Because we've been brainwashed into thinking that happiness lies in consuming ever more," he told Agence France Presse.

Kung said he sympathized with but was not a member of an 'anti-advertising' militant group in Paris who attack billboards and other advertising they say blight the landscape and render the population consumerist sheep.