New IPSOS/One Voice survey released: twice as many French people opposed to hunting as those in favour

A context in which hunters have finally come across strong opposition in the field: ours

In the meantime, numerous events have or are about to take place. The government is still hesitating to once more authorise the traditional hunting of small birds against the decision from the State Council, following the one from the European Union Court of Justice.

The commission in charge of the case file on the law proposed on the safety of hunting by the Senate, who met with us, returned a more than disappointing report, even though the trial on the death of Morgan Keane, who had started the ‘One Day One Hunter’ petition obtaining more than 120,000 signatures on the Senate’s site, is starting in a few weeks. 87% of French people found that hunting poses safety problems for walkers. Around three in four people living near a hunting zone are worried by the idea of walking around in the countryside due to the presence of hunters; almost eight in ten people have already avoided going out in this case, six on multiple occasions.

Thousands of animals have perished in fires in the summer or have been floored by the heatwave. All of them have suffered.

Badgers and their babies have been hunted down to the depths of their setts in numerous departments; we have joined together with numerous local and national associations for justice to put an end to this deadly hobby and have also documented the process. The National Assembly’s Sustainable Development Committee also heard from us at the end of September 2022 about wire fencing in Sologne, after that of the Senate last year, because our investigation into penned hunting in Sologne and elsewhere had provided us with solid expertise in the field.

Only one in four French people are in favour of hunting

The results of the IPSOS/One Voice survey in September 2022 do however give food for thought to those defending animals like ourselves. In fact, since last year, the proportion of people who state that they have a favourable opinion towards hunting has risen (26% versus 20% in September 2021). The ‘management of animal populations’, particularly, is an aspect of hunting that six in ten French people think is valid. French people are therefore still ignoring what hunting is in reality: a hobby which has no other justification than the pleasure of killing, with no or almost no limits. Despite strong news linked to the dangers and endless requests for exemption by hunters, some find them, unjustly, charming.

Animal breeding farms for hunting: partridges, wild boars, deer… or feeding (always feeding wild animals in the same place so that they can kill them as soon as the hunting season begins) would not exist if hunters were really ‘regulators’.

Last year, it also seemed that the annual eight million tonnes of lead that had fallen to the bottom of the wetlands due to these same hunters had been forgotten, polluting the whole fragile ecosystem of these ponds and seashores, where huts can be installed and live ducks attached to call to other ducks to land while passing during migration – they too are forgotten… We will not omit this, and will do everything we can for the information to be remembered once again.

After the heatwave and fires, French people are in favour of leaving animals alone

Hunters justify their existence by arguing that they love nature and that they regulate animal species who, without them, “would run riot”. On one hand, nobody else but them believes in this self-proclaimed status of them being on-the-ground environmentalists. Last year’s survey shows this well. On the other, if this was really the case, no hunter would shoot this year, given the suffering and also the carnage of this summer throughout the whole of France. Eight to nine French people in ten agree with a ban on hunting in areas affected by drought or fires, the majority are even “completely in agreement” with this.

However, the most shared opinion is still an overall opposition to hunting (48%), strong support of framework measures for hunting (all measures proposed are supported by the majority of French people who are “completely in favour”, and 76% to 92% in favour of them). Finally, a negative view of what hunting is (from another era and not a hobby like any other), of what it offers to animals (cruel to 65%) and humans (intrinsically a source of risk).

One Voice — at a moment when animal associations leading investigations are threatened by a gag amendment adopted by the finance committee at the National Assembly — who want to be a single voice for animals, the planet, and humans, will do all we can to support animals against the hunting lobby and to always inform the public as best we can on the reality of what hunting is: a dangerous, barbaric, and polluting activity.

Download the survey in its entirety

The French and hunting — An Ipsos study for One Voice

Translated from the French by Joely Justice