France busts chicory cartel

French competition authorities on Tuesday fined 10 chicory growers' groups a total of 3.6 million euros ($4.7 million dollars) for fixing the price of the country's fourth most popular vegetable. The authority said in the ruling published on its website that the cartel had been operating for the last 14 years across the chicory sector, whose main growing areas are the northern Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy regions. But it said that while the case was of "undeniable gravity", it had imposed low fines to take into account the current difficulties faced by growers of the vegetable, used in salads.