French outrage after US deems its cheese 'filthy'

Indignation is growing among cheese-lovers in France and the US after Washington branded a type of French cheese as unfit for human consumption.

The US government slapped an import ban on mimolette cheese at the end of May, leaving 1.5 tonnes of the item impounded at a warehouse. American food inspectors object to the use of mites to refine its flavour.

According to the US food and drug administration, the cheese "appears to consist in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance or be otherwise unfit for food".

"This is absurd," a mimolette producers' spokesman said. "Changing the production process would change the flavor. No one has ever got ill from eating our cheese."