‘Surplus’ animals in animal testing: One Voice’s plea to the administrative tribunal

Almost one and a half million of these animals killed in France every year...

Each year, almost two million animals are used in experiments by French laboratories. Six hundred thousand additional animals are exploited for the creation and upkeep of genetically modified lines…

As for the others, they are bred, kept in captivity, then killed, simply considered as projected ‘stock’. And we are not talking about one or two individuals: in 2017 (the most recent available data), there were almost one and a half million animals in France alone! Among the four million who were bred or imported here each year for animal testing, more than one in three is therefore involved. Some will see their tissue taken for post-mortem analysis, which justifies their exploitation in the eyes of the laboratories. For the others in any case, the suffering of life in a cage could have been avoided.

...while the European Union demands that their number be reduced!

Perhaps these animals suffer less than their peers used in experimental procedures – incidentally, they are not counted in the Ministry’s annual statistical surveys (which we have analysed and presented in detail), and any laboratory accredited in animal testing can breed and kill them at their will. But an entire life in captivity in a minuscule cage (scarcely half an A4 sheet for three adult mice!) is unbearable.

The refusal from the Ministry to implement measures to reduce the number of these animals is against the spirit of the regulations and the French State’s commitment regarding the European Directive. The Directive would like everything possible to be done to reduce their number, whether they are eventually used or not.

We are demanding solutions

Last year, German prosecutors launched an investigation to determine whether laboratories slaughtering surplus animals constitutes a crime as long as it involves killing them without adequate justification. The investigation is still ongoing. If these practices are in fact ruled as criminal, Germany will have another reason to prevent the birth of these animals, which will spare them from suffering a life in captivity devoid of interest.

On our side of the Rhine, at the beginning of October 2022, we wrote to the Ministry of Research on the matter. Not having received a response three months later, and represented by the Géo Avocats law firm who will assist us with these issues, One Voice is therefore deferring to the Paris Administrative Tribunal. Thus, we are asking the judge to arrange for the Ministry to apply European regulations by implementing the necessary measures to obtain a notable reduction in the number of ‘surplus’ animals bred and killed shamelessly. The file is being investigated and we are waiting for the date of the hearing. The courts will have to decide.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice