In Beuvry-la-Forêt (North), an apparent calm as flat as the surrounding landscape reigns over this first weekend in March. However, this Saturday 2, around 2:30 p.m., a demonstration formed at the foot of the church in the village of three thousand inhabitants, halfway between Lille and Valenciennes. In a row, around fifteen people brandish signs with flashy slogans: “Cockfighting = torture”, “Barbarism is not our culture”.
This rally was launched by the Northern section of the Animalist Party, which came to demonstrate against the holding of cockfights organized on the same day, about a hundred meters away, in an alley slightly set back from the city center. For the occasion, the Jean-Degros room was transformed into a gallodrome, an enclosure dedicated to cockfighting.
Under the gaze of some two hundred spectators, some of whom came with their families, the cocklers or cockroaches, these men and women engaging in this practice, arrive in dribs and drabs, transporting their animals in wooden trunks. Around twenty fights are planned.
Organized by the Société de chasse de la place, an association of local hunters, the event is open to the public, with an entry ticket of 3 euros per person. The only rule to respect: the ban on taking photos or videos of the fights. “You never know how these images might be used. The tradition no longer really has good press,” breathes one of the organizers, who requested anonymity.
A petition in favor of abolition
Cockfighting is in principle prohibited in France, but a 1964 law tolerates it in the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, as well as in the overseas regions (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion), where this centuries-old practice has been elevated to the rank of tradition since the 18th centurye century. It consists of placing two roosters armed with a sharp blade on each leg in a fenced arena, until one of the two succumbs or is no longer able to fight. These duels, chaired by a jury, generally last six minutes and are subject to betting.
“As long as these cruel acts threaten the lives of roosters, we will denounce them,” insists Sabine Billard, representative in the North of the Animalist Party. On several occasions, Les Ecologists (ex-EELV) have also demonstrated, through press releases and speeches, their “firm and constant opposition to the authorization of such fights which, under the cover of local tradition, resemble torture of animals.”
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