The animal rights association L214 broadcast on Tuesday evening images of brutalized and dying animals in a sow slaughterhouse in Briec (Finistère).
The prefecture refers to "unacceptable practices with serious breaches of animal protection rules".
"L214 asks the Minister of Agriculture for a new generalist audit of all slaughterhouses in France," said the association which regularly publishes "shock" videos to denounce the conditions of breeding and slaughter of animals.
🚨 NEW SURVEY 🚨 @ fredericlenoir2 and L214 unveil images filmed in a slaughterhouse of the @mousquetairesfr group (Intermarché).
Hell for the animals and the veterinary services let it go.
⚠️ Demand its emergency closure! 👉 https://t.co/woxml90eOx pic.twitter.com/ymCVnpF9lN
- L214 ethics & animals (@ L214) May 5, 2021
The images broadcast on the association's website show sows being pushed with kicks and electric goads, while they seem partly paralyzed, dragging themselves on the ground.
Others are stabbed in the anus to move faster.
Still others find themselves stranded in a hallway that is obviously too narrow.
The stings not allowing to release the two animals, an operator uses a clamp to electrocute on one to release the other.
2300 “end of career” sows slaughtered each week
"Given the horror, we are optimistic that these images will cause (l) administrative closure" of the slaughterhouse, says L214. The images were shot in the slaughterhouse of the Société briécoise d'amattage (SBA), a unit of the Les Mousquetaires group (Intermarché) specializing in the slaughter, cutting and boning of cull sows, that is to say - say of sows at the “end of their career”. According to L214, 2,300 pigs are slaughtered there every week.
"The images filmed at the Société Briécoise d'Abattage and broadcast today by L214 are shocking", reacted in a statement the management of the slaughterhouse, saying to have "decided, as a precautionary measure, to temporarily suspend the production line concerned , while awaiting the conclusions of the various internal audits and investigations which were immediately carried out, in conjunction with the health authorities ”.
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The prefecture of Finistère evokes for its part in a press release "unacceptable practices with serious breaches of animal protection rules".
The establishment already inspected in 2016
Following several investigations by the L214 association in 2015 and 2016, the Minister of Agriculture at the time, Stéphane Le Foll, ordered inspections in all slaughterhouses in France at the end of March 2016.
That of Briec had been inspected in April 2016.
"Five years later, all the problems identified by the DDPP (the veterinary services) continue", denounces L214.
"The non-conformities identified since 2016, all minor, have been the subject of regulatory reminders to the company for the implementation of corrective actions", specifies the prefecture of Finistère, stressing that "compliance with the requirements in terms of animal protection is the responsibility of the slaughterer ”.
“The serious non-conformities seen in the video could never be observed in the presence of the inspectors.
They would have resulted in immediate administrative and criminal sanctions, ”adds the prefecture.
L214 complains "for serious abuse committed against animals to the public prosecutor of Quimper and ask the justice to severely punish the management of the slaughterhouse, as well as the veterinary services of the department", indicates the association in its press release .
It also adds to introduce “a liability action against the State for failure to fulfill its mission of monitoring the application of the regulations”.