

CNRS to become national supplier of macaques for laboratories? One Voice opposes the plan
The French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has decided to transform the Rousset primatology center into a national primate breeding facility with a capacity of 2,000 individuals. This project reduces animals to mere tools in the service of a lucrative system, in total contradiction with European commitments to reduce animal experimentation. Faced with this abuse, One Voice is mobilizing to prevent this expansion.
Funded by taxpayers up to €30 million, the future National Primatology Center already planned last fall to “produce 40% of the French academic research needs for cynomolgus macaques”. In its eagerness to turn the current Rousset station into a veritable primate factory, the CNRS has already revised its announced goal upwards. According to the president of the GIRCOR, the experimentation lobby, it now plans to supply 50% of these animals… and 100% of rhesus macaques. This means that three times as many monkeys will have to be bred in Rousset to undergo experiments in France… or be sold across Europe to suffer the same fate outside our borders.
Unspeakable suffering for endangered monkeys
To make this lucrative business work, the CNRS has joined forces with Mauritian farms that capture long-tailed macaques, also known as cynomolgus macaques, in the wild to use them for breeding, as our investigation has revealed. In doing so, it is directly involved in the trafficking of these animals, which are classified as “endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species… and which continue to be the most widely used primate species for testing, with no fewer than 3,077 individuals experimented on in France in 2023. Virus inoculation, cranial implants, endless injections and tests… the list of horrors to which these animals are subjected is endless.
Financial interests come first
Since 2020, France has been responsible for more than half of the monkeys used in European laboratories. And it has no intention of stopping there. Contrary to the recommendations of the European Directive, which unambiguously recommends reducing the number of animals, it is investing heavily in this outdated model. The CNRS intends to perpetuate this under the pretext of national sovereignty. The suffering of animals is irrelevant. The existence of reliable alternative methods, which are simply waiting to be funded, is irrelevant. As long as the laboratories are running, the experimenters persist—against all common sense.
As we successfully opposed the construction of a primatology center in Holtzheim, Alsace, and the expansion of dog breeding facilities in Mézilles and Gannat, we are now mobilizing against the CNRS project in Rousset.
Say no to the national primatology center and join us on August 27 at our information kiosk at Place Paul Borde in Rousset.
Would you like to contribute to the failure of this project at the local level through ad hoc informational actions? Let us know by sending us an email at: info@one-voice.fr