Jumbo in his skip, tigers in a lorry... The Muller/Zavatta Circus is setting up in Cannes

Photo: Young lion, Muller/Zavatta Circus, Martigues January 2023

The Muller Circus changes its name as it pleases in order to settle wherever it goes, causing confusion and making any control operations by competent authorities difficult. It could become - and this list is not exhaustive - Canadian Circus, 100% Cirque, 100% Humain [Human] (which is laughable as this circus is based on animal exploitation), and lastly the Zavatta Circus.

Recently, it is definitely the Muller family who has renamed themselves: Franck Muller masquerading as the grandson of Achille Zavatta and calling himself John Zavatta. And why stop at that? Jumbo, the hippopotamus exploited for decades, has become Mooglie.

The Cannes town council’s very subtle decision

The decision by the Cannes town council, having been told by the circus that the animals do not participate in shows, is a bit fleeting... because problems remain and this solution actually adds another one:

• The Muller-Zavatta Circus will remain, along with the animals they keep, on the town’s land;
• the animals will continue to be subjected to being permanently enclosed in cramped and unsuitable cages, encouraging the development of stereotypies, boredom, and stress;
• finally, this decision goes against the provisions of the 18 March 2011 decree (article 9) which authorises non-domestic animals to be kept in circuses ONLY if the animals actually participate in shows.

One Voice finds it regrettable that animals from the Muller/Zavatta Circus will be continually kept in establishments incapable of responding to their most basic physiological needs, particularly with regard to the - emblematic - case of Jumbo the hippopotamus, an amphibious animal, kept in completely unsuitable conditions.

How many examples do we have of circuses with animals in which pseudo-fires have caused the logbook to go up in smoke or of it being stolen from a vehicle - as if a passer-by, noticing that a register of the comings and goings of animals is lying around on the back shelf, was going to hasten to break a window to be able to steal it...?

Animals are victims until the very end

Non-conforming living conditions for the animals, animals in a bad state of health, a lack of traceability of the animals’ movements, a lack of keeping proper logs for health and for the comings and goings of the animals, non-compliance with identification and registration requirements, disrespect for permissions to keep animals, to open, and to present them to the public... For more than twenty years and despite changes in regulations over time, One Voice has not stopped alerting the authorities about the constant infractions of the regulations within circuses and the lack of inspections.

The fate of hundreds of animals living in circuses today in France cannot be resolved overnight. It requires preparation and discussions to effectively apply prohibitions provided for by the law. Since the vote on it in 2021, which will hardly change anything, the government has turned a deaf ear to any requests for steps forward and no implementing decree is yet to be published. Those who pay the highest price for this, once again, are the animals. Let’s hope that their fate will be discussed at the next Cannes Town Council meeting on Monday 13 February.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice