Four years after opening L'Ostape, a country inn near Bidarray in French Basque country, Alain Ducasse has withdrawn from the project. The hotel, magnificently sited on a hillside with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, has been the object of three different small-scale bombing attempts, including one last year when it was fully occupied. "The departure of Alain Ducasse should be an example to all other businessmen who think they can take advantage of the Basque Country by offering it up in folkloric terms," said a statement issued by Batasuna, the Basque independence party. Workers had been protesting low salaries at the inn since last September, and most locals seemed to view the hotel as a ghetto for the rich. "He didn't succeed here, and that is that," one of them told the French newspaper Liberation.
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