With his association for the defense of animal rights, Stéphane Lamart lodges a complaint in each case of mutilated equine animals in 2020. He considers that this type of aggression is on the rise and pleads for better handling of these files by officials of police and magistrates.
Are there more acts of animal cruelty?
STÉPHANE LAMART. Yes, we are attacking animals a lot more than before. In the case of equines, it is doubtful whether the same people committed all the attacks. We can have a phenomenon of imitation, where people reproduce the procedure. The animal is considered a thing. It is a form of cowardice, because the animals are on their own. They cannot denounce the author of their suffering. We need to keep these animals safe, by video surveillance, by sleeping there, by encouraging people to speak out against acts of cruelty.
According to a report by the National Observatory on Delinquency and Criminal Responses (ONDRP) published in July 2020, more and more people are being questioned ...
It's good news. Our association handles around 1,500 complaints per year, around 140 cases are litigated in court. We are in the process of filing a complaint for each case of equine assaulted on the territory. We have a good legal arsenal. The legislator has provided protective texts. The problem is that their implementation still depends too much on the sensitivity of the police and magistrates who handle cases. Some people abandon this type of file because they forget that an animal feels physical and moral suffering like a human being.
What do you propose to improve the handling of these cases?
There should be more awareness and better training of police and justice officials in animal protection. We could even have an office within the Ministry of the Interior with a toll-free number that would inform all police stations about the existing procedures concerning animal abuse. That would make it possible to direct them to these cases. I also think that we could form partnerships with associations like ours so that we can support each other on cases of ill-treatment and acts of cruelty.