Animals’ heads torn off: One Voice reveals its investigation footage on the goose neck game

Young people all smiles, laughter, music... you could almost believe this was a good-natured party. Until we notice the rope stretched horizontally where twenty animals have been hung from. Geese, chickens, and rabbits whose lifeless bodies hang in the air were killed especially to be subjected to the most degrading treatment and to entertain the inhabitants of Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom. So how were they killed? Like in the Basque country: “either we drown them or we open their mouths and stick a knife in them”.

An extremely violent event

The ‘fête’ begins when a couple of these young men who have turned 18 that year pass under the rope, sitting in pairs on the back of a horse. With their arms raised, they hit the goose which hangs above them. The most violent blows send the animal's head into the air before it falls, dangling limply at the end of its white neck. As if this French piñata were not sinister enough, the women make a second pass under the rope, alone, to kiss the bird, sometimes pulling on its neck so hard that it seems close to dislocating. At the height of the action: the men then tear off the heads of the geese, rabbits, and chickens with their bare hands before brandishing them while singing joyfully to the crowd. What better way is there to enter adulthood and ensure a promising future than these abject acts and the accompanying degrading spectacle? Of course, these beings are lifeless, but they are still animals.

A ‘tradition’ that creates victims each year

This is not the first time that we have condemned this barbaric ‘tradition’ which is still very much alive in certain French villages. We did so in August 2022, when a goose was mutilated in Beaux, then in August 2023 in Arfeuilles, where the decapitation was carried out using a sabre… The organizers defend themselves by boasting that they are not cutting off the heads of living animals. But they don't seem to mind having them killed beforehand to allow their corpses to be torn apart. Here we are dealing with a practice dating from the Middle Ages that trivialises animal abuse and establishes it as a real rite of passage to adulthood. This initiation should be done without incitement to cruelty. Does our society really need this? The festival committee, organiser of the event, does not even take responsibility: the program for the day does not even say who they are.

To ask for a ban on the goose neck ‘game’ throughout France for all of the geese, chickens, rabbits, and ducks killed and decapitated every year, and for the protection of our youth who represent and constitute the future of our society, sign our petition.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice