One Voice and its partners are getting Air France to stop transporting primates for animal testing!

Bonjour, en cohérence avec sa stratégie RSE, Air France a décidé d’arrêter le transport de primates. Elle y mettra fin dès l’issue de ses engagements contractuels en cours avec les organismes de recherche.

— Air France Newsroom (@AFnewsroom) June 30, 2022

After years of relentless struggles, One Voice have got Air France to stop primate transportation. It is a huge victory that we share with our British partners, Action For Primates, and Spanish one, Stop Camarles, but also with members of the European coalitions that we are part of, the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE) and Cruelty Free Europe, and who, for many among us, have taken on the fight that has stopped the transport of monkeys from and to foreign countries into France.

Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice, stated:

“France is one of the rare countries in Europe which continues to experiment on primates, experiments in which the suffering inflicted on our cousins is generally severe. Since 1996 (One Voice was called Aequalis at the time), we have requested that Air France stops taking part in this torture inflicted on primates. We are extremely happy about this decision, even if it comes late in relation to what is at stake and in relation to other companies.”

Air France was one of the last large national companies to continue taking part in the cruel trade of animals for laboratories, and monkeys in particular, coming mainly from the Republic of Mauritius
where they are violently captured in the wild and destined for breeding (at Biosphere Trading for example) and many among them are sent abroad, turning France into a hub for this trade that is certainly legal, but despicable. European parliamentarians have thus themselves also taken part in our fight for the Mauritian macaques destined to die on laboratory benches.

This decision is in part due to collecting a million signatures under the framework of the European Citizens’ Initiative in favour of stopping testing on animals for cosmetics, and a unanimous vote by Members of the European Parliament for a progressive elimination of animal testing in the EU in September 2021, as well as the effective implementation at the end of the year for the ban on using F1 primates (from the first generation born in captivity from parents captured in the wild), and many other national and freight
companies having stopped these activities.

We spare a thought for the macaques in Indonesia, Cambodia, and Mauritius, passing through the Silabe
platform (in collaboration with the University of Strasbourg), and for those still being transported by other companies (Wamos Air or EgyptAir, Air Bridge Cargo…), but also via Russia or the United States, against which our work to raise awareness will continue tirelessly.

Of course, we are going to contact Air France as soon as possible in order to learn more on the terms of this cessation, because the publication mentions that it will not be effective immediately but at the end of the contracts in place with research laboratories.

We are counting on you to continue to sign the petition to put a stop to transporting monkeys from Mauritius. And you can always add your voice to the European Citizens’ Initiative SaveCrueltyFreeCosmetics, which, as you may know, does not have a direct link with primates, but also calls for an eventual stop to testing on all animals within the European Union.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice