The Paris administrative court confirmed on Friday the decision of the police headquarters banning a parade of around fifty camels, dromedaries, llamas and alpacas, planned for Saturday in the Eiffel Tower area.
In his decision, the judge of the administrative court considers that the order of the prefect of police, which authorizes "the parade on another route located in the Bois de Vincennes", does not constitute "a serious and manifestly illegal attack on freedoms fundamental principles invoked by the FFDCFE”.
The French Federation for the Development of Camelids in France and Europe (FFDCFE) had planned to parade around fifty animals on Saturday, from the quays of the Seine to the Unesco headquarters, passing in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Invalides, in the very chic 7th arrondissement of the capital.
Maintain or cancel the parade?
The organizer of this demonstration, Christian Schoettl, mayor of Janvry (Essonne), indicated that he had mobilized "a crisis meeting" to decide by midday on Saturday whether he would finally organize the parade on the proposed route. Vincennes, or will completely renounce the demonstration.
“I would not endanger the animals for the police headquarters,” he said.
To justify the ban around the Eiffel Tower, the police prefect, Laurent Nuñez, cited on Thursday an area, the Champ-de-Mars, “affected by infrastructure assembly sites” in view of the Olympic Games and “ the significant consequences on traffic” in this tourist location.
A tightening of the Vigipirate plan
The prefecture had also raised security issues, with an initial route near public buildings, in a context of “hardening of the Vigipirate posture” since the “claim of the Moscow attack by the Islamic State organization”.
The announcement of this parade sparked the animal rights association Paris Animaux Zoopolis, which denounced in a press release the use of animals as “objects of entertainment” and “vulgar food resources”.
For his part, Christian Schoettl explained on Tuesday that this parade aimed to support “the cause of the camel in the French capital of human rights”.