More than a thousand people, including many hunters but also farmers, demonstrated Saturday in the Ardennes under the slogan of "
angry rurality
" against an ecology deemed punitive, we learned from the organizers and the prefecture.
Read alsoCalls for demonstrations to defend hunting and rurality are multiplying
Wearing orange vests, 1,300 demonstrators - according to the prefecture's count - which mingled with local elected officials wearing their scarves, marched on Saturday morning in Saulces-Monclin, near the Ardennes motorway area famous for the immense statue of the Woinic boar. Another procession was planned for the afternoon in Revin.
The demonstrators waved placards bearing slogans such as "
Abba Pompili
" (names of the Secretary of State in charge of biodiversity and the Minister of Ecological Transition), "
Hands off my hunt
" or "
Let us breathe.
“, According to photos released by the Ardennes hunting federation on social networks. "
We must not go too far vis-à-vis the rural world, otherwise it will explode,
" warned by phone to AFP the president of the National Federation of Hunters, Willy Schraen, denouncing in particular the early ban. August by the State Council of several traditional bird hunting methods. "
For thrushes, today we are talking about 52 people for a maximum sample of 2,000 birds, which we never reach, in about fifteen municipalities, it is so ridiculous that we could smile!
He got annoyed.
"
We do not want this pseudo-modernity which is based on nothing
", he denounced, estimating that "
these eco-animalists are not at all the majority of French people but are very structured and active on social networks
".
We don't want this pseudo-modernity that is based on nothing
Also present, the president of the FDSEA (Departmental Federation of Farmers' Unions) of the Ardennes, Thierry Huet stressed wanting to defend “
respect for diversity in the face of a desire for standardization
”. “
We are all collectively aware that biodiversity is important
”, he said, denouncing “
the incessant attacks against the ancestral ways of life of rurality
”.
Demonstrations of the collective “
angry rurality
” have already taken place on August 28, among others, in Digne-les-Bains and Toulon and others are announced on September 18. At the beginning of August, seized by the League for the protection of birds (LPO) and One Voice, the Council of State canceled several authorizations to hunt certain species of birds, such as skylarks, thrushes and blackbirds, at the using nets or cages, deemed "
not to comply with the requirements of European law relating to the protection of birds
".