Since Tuesday, January 26, 2021, the National Assembly has been addressing the subject of animal abuse. Exploitation of wild animals, fines for mistreatment … What could the law change?
This is a first decision to be highlighted and commended. Tuesday, January 26, 2021, the National Assembly gave its go to "certificate of knowledge". The latter must be signed by any new owner of an animal, a flagship measure of the majority's bill against mistreatment, reports The world. The document will recall the duties of a master vis-à-vis his animal, that is to say the obligations of care, vaccination and the resulting costs: food, veterinarian … the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, who supports the text, the certificate will help "awareness" when acquiring an animal.
Animals are not "neither a fad of urban people in need of nature, nor a passing fashion, but a subject henceforth irreversibly political", affirmed the LREM deputy Loïc Dombreval, co-author of the bill of the majority against the ill-treatment. This advance could be a first step towards future more protective laws, a subject which interests the French and on which the majority therefore have every interest in positioning themselves. According to the IFOP barometer for the 30 Million Amis Foundation, shared on January 25, 2021, for "nearly 7 out of 10 French people (69%), animals are poorly defended by politicians, 68% of those polled considering that the government does not take animal protection sufficiently into account in its action."
Measures against mistreatment
The week is busy for the National Assembly on the animal question: nearly 500 amendments are being studied until Friday, January 29, 2021. From right to left, MPs agree on a point: the measurements are "useful" but are just"a first step", relay The world.
The bill also talks about toughening the penalties for mistreatment: three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros in the event of the animal's death. Likewise, convicted persons may be prohibited from keeping an animal. However, animal protection associations regret that the sale of animals on the Internet, for example, is not prohibited. What "promotes illegal breeding" and, in pet stores, "encourages impulse buying", according to the president of the SPA, Jacques-Charles Fombonne, interviewed by aufeminin.
Read also: Parc Asterix finally closes its dolphinarium, but its animals will not be released for all that
The issue of keeping wild animals
Concerning wild animals and their detention, the articles of the proposed law are in line with the commitments made by the government: to prohibit the detention of wild animals in traveling circuses and dolphinariums, on television sets, in discotheques, during private parties, but also to close mink farms. Two camps clash here: on the one hand, the Animalist Party, accompanied by associations such as One voice and L214, and on the other, representatives of the circuses. Lydia Zavatta or the great circus of Rome evoke a "coup de grace" against their profession. Barbara Pompili, Minister of the Ecological Transition, assured to want "move forward with professionals, and not against them". "The state will be there" for "accompany them towards new professions" and "create places" of reception for their animals, specifies the minister.
It should be noted however: when we take a closer look at the various subjects on the Assembly table, hunting, intensive breeding or even bullfighting are missing. Politically risky issues, but one that must be tackled if we really want to engage in animal protection.