The Constitutional Council announced Thursday, October 21 that it had been seized by the Council of State for a priority question of constitutionality concerning compensation for damage caused by wild boars to farmers, currently paid by hunters.
The National Federation of Hunters (FNC) seized the Council of State to challenge the compensation system for damage to large game (wild boar, deer and roe deer).
The damage caused to farmers by these animals, in particular wild boars, is financially covered by the departmental federations of hunters.
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For the FNC, this system disregards "
the principle of equality before public charges
" as well as the "
right to property
" guaranteed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen "
in so far as they provide that the whole of the costs linked to the non-contentious compensation procedure for damage caused by big game to crops and agricultural crops is borne by the hunters alone.
"
More and more wild boars
In a decision dated October 15, the Council of State decided to refer the matter back to the Constitutional Council to see if the contested legislative provision is contrary to the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. The Constitutional Council has up to three months to respond.
The wild boar population has multiplied in France in recent decades, helped by milder winters, the absence of natural predators and hunting that has been carried out for a long time "
in order to ensure its preservation and even development.
»Of animals, according to a parliamentary report published in 2019. This resulted in an increase in agricultural damage, in particular on corn, common wheat and meadows, to the point that Christiane Lambert, president of the first agricultural union, the FNSEA , had publicly criticized the hunters for not doing enough. "
Hunters and their federations can no longer assume alone the burden of damage to agricultural crops which amounts to 77 million euros
", argues in a press release the FNC.