Intensive breeding in France: a shocking new report.

On January 29, 2021, the Assembly adopted at first reading the bill on animal abuse. Many notable advances have thus been made, improving the living and keeping conditions of animals in France.

It would appear, however, that some sectors have fallen by the wayside. This is the case with intensive farming. If we now recognize the "right" to animals to be living and sentient beings, pigs, chickens, chickens and other poultry have not yet obtained this status.

Intensive breeding is still the order of the day and is doing better and better. Some are even thinking of expanding. Yet the conditions for raising and slaughtering animals are still a disgrace. We are far from the legal framework established by the law which seems to induce a gradation in dignity and suffering. If a puppy can no longer be displayed in the window, the chicken can continue to suffer in silence.

The animal rights association L214 showed a new example in a report broadcast a few days ago. The members of the association brought their cameras to an industrial chicken farm in Pas-de-Calais where we discover a sad spectacle of animals piled up and in bad shape; “Dead chickens lying in the middle of living animals, animals limping severely or even chickens whose bodies seem disproportionately large compared to their heads. "

The breeder has submitted a request to extend the site. The project is to triple the production area from 150,000 to 860,000 animals per year. L214 denounces in this possible extension "a disproportionate project, an ordeal for the animals, and an economic aberration" .

A first favorable opinion for the project was given on March 30 by the investigating commissioner while the city council is opposed to it arguing that the extension will generate strong noise and odor nuisance as well as an increase in the passage of trucks. The suffering of the animals in this farm is clearly not part of the nuisance register.

In the end, it is the prefecture that will decide at the end of the first half of 2021. Note that at the end of March, in the neighboring department of North, it authorized an intensive breeding project of 117,600 chickens in Steenwerck. A favorable opinion given despite a refusal issued by the locality and the commissioner responsible for the public inquiry.

This new report is an opportunity to once again highlight the L214 association, which fights on a daily basis to change the animal condition. Founded in 2008, the antispeciesist association aims to be a whistleblower through reports and shocking filmed testimonies. They regularly denounce the living conditions of animals on farms, but also during their transport and slaughter. They made it possible to put an end to absolutely unacceptable situations unknown to the general public.

On the strength of their growing notoriety, the members of the association regularly appeal to the public authorities in order to legislate and toughen the framework of the law. This is what they did with regard to this new case of intensive breeding. Indeed, last January, the association called, in an open letter, President Macron to draw up "an exit plan from intensive breeding , potentially at the origin of devastating diseases. Such an initiative would aim to suspend immediately the construction or extension of intensive and industrial farms which confine animals in closed buildings, in cages, forcing them to live in conditions of extreme promiscuity ”.