A scene of horror. On Saturday 16 December, two hunters from the Ardèche found their seven hunting dogs shot on a property in the Longo Maï community between Arcens and Chanéac, in the Ardèche.
Attracted by the presence of game, the dogs that were taking part in a wild boar hunt chased them before their owners found them, after hearing 15 to 20 shots, shot "a bullet between the two eyes" on land belonging to the Longo Maï community, according to the hunters' version transcribed by Le Dauphiné.
An agricultural, secular, rural, and anti-capitalist community
A member of this community tells the newspaper a different story. "The dogs rushed at our pigs," he said, adding that he "wanted to separate them but we couldn't do it with our bare hands. We had no choice but to shoot." Another member also described to the newspaper "uncontrollable" dogs that "did not respond to commands."
The first cooperative Longo Maï (a name that comes from the Provençal "may it last a long time") was born in 1973 in the wake of the events of May 1968, and presents itself as an agricultural, secular, rural and anti-capitalist community. Its goal: to lead a community life based on self-subsistence, constituted from a rejection of society, and functioning on the basis of a common life of solidarity and equality.
Agriculture, animal husbandry and clothing production
Initially, a community of several young people from Switzerland, Germany and Austria experimented with this new way of living on a 280-hectare plot of land in a depopulated rural region of Haute-Provence, in Limans, in the early 1970s, giving birth to Longo Maï. Their political vision was inspired by that of the anarchist Roland Perrot, a former deserter during the Algerian war and very active in May 1968, who advocated anti-militarism, pacifism and anti-capitalism.
Read alsoIn Ardèche, members of a community slaughter seven stray dogs belonging to hunters
Over the years, the community has been looking for and buying land and houses in France and Europe, with the aim of expanding to organize productive income-generating activities in agriculture and livestock. Subsequently, it also produced clothing, investing in the wool and cosmetics sector, always adopting an environmentally friendly behavior, while living in self-sufficiency.
It was very quickly after its beginnings, at the end of the 1970s, that a new cooperative was established in a place called Treynas, in Chanéac. It was this same group, now made up of about twenty inhabitants, who admitted to having opened fire on the seven dogs of the two Ardèche hunters. Contacted by Le Parisien following the events of this weekend, the discreet Longo Maï community of Treynas did not wish to answer our questions.
"In the Ardèche, no one knows it exists"
Denis Amblard, head of communication for the departmental federation of Ardèche hunters (FDC 07), tells us that he has no information about its members. "In the Ardèche, no one knows that it exists or very little, apart from the locals. I don't even know if it's really a community, it's more like marginalized people living among themselves," he said.
According to a press release sent to us by FDC 07, this is not the first time that hunters have encountered problems with "these people", since "their dogs approach this territory". The president of the FDC 07, Jacques Aurange, mentions in particular "insults and death threats for dogs (...) a few weeks ago." "The next time I see your dogs, I'll kill them!" one of the Longo Mai members was quoted as saying after the latest conflict.
Today, the Longo Maï network of cooperatives extends in France and Euriope in particular in Treynas (Ardèche), Briançon (Hautes-Alpes), Vitrolles-en-Luberon (Vaucluse), Saint-Martin de Crau (Bouches-du-Rhône), Eisenkappel (Austria), Ulenkrug (Germany) or in the Swiss Jura.