By JOHN TAGLIABUE

CHAMPAGNE, Switzerland - Makers of sparkling wine in the United States, Russia and Ukraine can appropriate the Champagne name for their products, but an innocent biscuit maker in this tiny Swiss town is out of luck.
Marc-Andre Cornu was salmon fishing in Norway when he got word.
His secretary was on the line, saying that lawyers for the Swiss distributors of French Champagne had written to say he could no longer use the brand name his family had used since the 1930s. Three generations, beginning with his grandfather, had labeled their baked goods “de Champagne,’’ after their Swiss village, nestled among the vineyards that creep north from the shores of Lake Neuchatel.
In 1998, Switzerland reached an accord with the European Union that allowed its former national airline, Swissair, to make stopovers in European Union cities. In return, Switzerland, which is not a member of the union, agreed to forbid the people of Champagne, population 710, to use the town’s name on their products.
In this agreement, the Europeans were doing the bidding of France, ever vigilant about defending the integrity and identity of Champagne. But that vigilance has not extended to threats from the United States and other big countries. In 2001, Swissair went bankrupt, and its successor, Swiss International Air Lines, is owned by Lufthansa. Yet now, Mr. Cornu, 46, and his baked goods company, which employs about 80 people, including his children, risk a fine if they invoke the name of their town. So, too, do the winemakers here, who in the best of years before the ban sold about 110,000 bottles of their light, nonsparkling wine, but now, without the Champagne label, are down 70 percent.
The local people have organized demonstrations to draw attention to their plight.
“Our goal is not to be the bin Ladens of wine, to be terrorists or ideologues, said Albert Banderet, 59, the former mayor who grew grapes until he entered public administration, leaving the vineyards to his son. “But wine is a reality here.
The French say they are struggling to protect an Appellation d’Origine Controlee, or A.O.C., a convoluted certification that authenticates the content, method and origin of a French agricultural product.
“Why is it worth so much to us? asked Daniel Lorson, spokesman for the Interprofessional Committee of the Wines of Champagne, a trade group in Epernay, France. “To prevent it from becoming a generic name, on yogurt or toothpaste, and lose its authenticity.
That’s why we carry the fight daily.
Mr. Lorson says it was not his committee that began the mess. A few years ago, a Swiss vintner sold about 3,000 bottles of wine under the name Champagne to a French supermarket chain. An anti-fraud agency, which inspects food stores, reported them.
In 2004, the last year the villagers could use “Champagne’’ on their wine labels, they sold 110,000 bottles. By last year, sales had plummeted to 32,000. The vintners have tried using names like Libre Champ, Champagnoux and C-Ampagne. “Those were really artificial names, Mr. Bindschedler said. “It’s deadly not to be able to use your own name.
Mr. Cornu said French Champagne makers obtained a court order in Paris in 2005 barring him from making and selling products with the brand name “de Champagne, and from using his company’s Web site.
He accuses the French of bullying tiny Switzerland. “They are less aggressive toward Russia, Ukraine or the United States, he said, where the French allow the use of the name Champagne as a semi-generic term for sparkling wine. “We have a problem understanding this.