An apocalyptic setting, on the ground a layer of several centimeters of excrement, ducks which circulate in the middle of the corpses of their congeners in decomposition but also of the rats, the maggots… The video, diffused this Thursday by the association L214 and shot in a breeding of foie gras from Lichos (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), lifts the heart.
“These are the worst images we have shot! Animal welfare but also environmental issue and health risk, this breeding is a bomb… ”, worries Brigitte Gothière, the co-founder of the association for the defense of animals. L214 files a complaint and demands the immediate and definitive closure of this company recognized by the profession since it supplies the protected geographical indication (PGI) "foie gras from the South-West" sector. Despite our attempts by phone and email, we were unable to reach its leader.
The association was alerted by a former employee of the site: "The ducks have a terrible life there and it is not recent", insists Joël *, who stole a duck. “It's bad, but she was in such a bad state, I tell myself that I saved her. It was he who advised L214 to aim his targets in and around the shed where the breeding males live. Classically in this company, the "fathers" are Muscovy ducks whose semen is collected to fertilize the mothers, Peking canes. From these artificial inseminations, mulard duck eggs are born, sterile hybrids which produce fatty liver.
Few controls
“We will be told that this installation is an extreme case, it was the same for the slaughterhouses. But I fear that these outrageous conditions are no exception. In the foie gras sector, no one looks at the parents, they are invisible, ”underlines Brigitte Gothière. In the petition published at the same time as the video, the association therefore calls for an audit of breeding farms and foie gras hatcheries across the country, a survey on the model of that carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture in the slaughterhouses in 2016 following shock videos from the association.
In France, only 1% of farms are inspected. "It's far too little, and even for those that take place how do they unfold? What are the penalties, if any? We need transparency ”, claims Brigitte Gothière. Marie-Pierre Pé, president of the Interprofessional Committee of Foie Gras Palmipeds (CIFOG), protests: “We know L214 well, we have to take a step back from these theatrical images. Their goal is to do something sensational to advance their cause: vegetarianism. "
Basically, she denounces a false trial against the industry: "The reproduction of ducks, very technical, is particularly monitored," she insists. The hatcheries and breeding farms are visited by the veterinary services; approval from these same services is required to open a hatchery, not to mention that an internal charter for the profession goes beyond the standards. "
L214, already a hundred videos
“Two every three months, we have a good rhythm,” jokes Sébastien Arsac, co-founder of L214. Since its creation in 2008, the association has published around a hundred shocking videos. Each time, it calls for an administrative closure or legal action with, in this area, ultimately little success. Thus their first video in a Charal slaughterhouse was accompanied by a complaint for cruelty… closed without follow-up.
No ill-treatment, no illegality, nothing to report had estimated justice. There were still some victories, such as the closure of this particularly unworthy laying hen farm in Ain; that of the Saint-François hatchery, in Finistère, where the chicks were crushed or suffocated. But the real successes are above all opinion successes: when more than 150 companies stop selling eggs from caged chickens and change the country's practices.
