Paris: An entire street, cellars of apartment blocks and underground car parks have been flooded with wine in a southern French town in an act of sabotage.

"Wine terrorists" released tens of thousands of litres from giant vats belonging to a merchant in the Mediterranean port of Sete.

The wine flooded the street in front of the dealer's premises and was several inches deep along a stretch of the road and the smell filled the entire district.

It took firefighters half an hour to drain the liquid away.

Police did not comment on what had caused the massive leak. But the local press was quick to speculate that it was the work of saboteurs such as the Comite Regional d'Action Viticole (CRAV) - or the Regional Wine Action Committee - an underground group of "wine terrorists" bent on militant action to protect local producers from foreign imports.

A member of CRAV on Tuesday confirmed the group was behind the sabotage in an interview with French television.

"This wine is coming in [from abroad] at prices that defy any competition. We don't stand a chance. It just can't continue like this," said the man, whose face was blurred by the TV station, and who was shown standing in a vineyard with rows of vines stretching out behind him.

He said the next step for CRAV would be to target supermarket chains that favour cheap imported wine over French ones. "We will deal with them like we have done with the others," if they don't meet CRAV's demands, he warned.

The group has been active since 1970 in France's biggest wine-growing region - Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrenees - where Sete is located.

It is estimated to have around 1000 members, many of whom are furious that Spanish and Italian winemakers are able to sell their produce at far lower prices due to less red tape.

They have accused the French government of doing nothing to stop the flood of foreign produce which, they say, has put their livelihood at risk.

The influx of foreign wine has forced some vignerons to choose between selling their wine below cost or shutting up altogether.

In recent years, CRAV has hijacked tankers of foreign wine and dynamited government buildings or supermarkets.

Last April, French wine makers hijacked five tankers full of Spanish wine on the border, pouring the equivalent of 90,000 bottles of red and white down the drain in protest at "unfair competition".

It caused a diplomatic row between France and Spain, with the latter describing the incident as "flagrant violation of the basic principles of the EU".

And last July a group of CRAV members torched a wine-tasting cellar in the village of Ouveillan, in Aude, before daubing "bandit" and "fraud" on its walls.

Jean Vialade, CRAV's late co-founder, was so notorious for his exploits that Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan dictator, is said to have offered him $US50 million and military training to "overthrow the French government".

Telegraph, London