Despite public outrage, Arfeuilles and Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom are sticking with the game of "goose neck"
One Voice is appealing to the authorities in the regions of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme
We are ready to knock on every door to get the game of “goose neck” abandoned in Arfeuilles and Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, and so we have written to the DDPP (Departmental Directorate for Protection of Populations) in the regions of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme. We remind the State services that these atrocities continue to be committed in these municipalities by young people, on animals killed specifically for this purpose.
In 2024, we had already referred the matter to the prefecture’s veterinary services regarding the patron saint’s festival in Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, so they already have the two complaints we filed and the irregularities we noted in the village in 2023. We will do everything we can to ensure that the voice of animals is heard and that these two festivities no longer celebrate a representation of violence against sentient beings!
Beaux, Lesmont, Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, Arfeuilles… Every year, One Voice campaigns to end the game of “goose neck” in towns that still choose to entertain their residents by mutilating animal carcasses suspended from a rope. Despite growing opposition to these cruel festivities, Arfeuilles and Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom finally decided to continue sacrificing geese, ducks, chickens and rabbits to entertain the crowds. Once again, we are taking up the fight.
Thanks to our efforts, the town council of Lesmont, in the Aube region, has banned the “goose neck” tradition during its summer festival which will be held in August 2025. However, this is far from being the case in all the municipalities concerned. In Arfeuilles, in the Allier region, the festival committee is defending this practice at all costs, turning a deaf ear to both the petition launched against it in 2014 and our denunciation in 2023. This year once again, we have called on the municipality to replace this bloody game with a non-violent, empathy-based activity that would enrich its citizens and protect the children. The only response was the publication of the programme for the patron saint’s festival… with the “goose neck” scheduled for 4pm on 15 August.
Scheming in the Puy-de-Dôme region
Worse still, in Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, where our September 2023 investigation showed ten young men tearing the heads off twenty animals to celebrate their coming of age, this spectacle is set to resume. Has the victory we achieved in 2024 taught the municipality nothing? What became of the ethnologist they claimed to have contacted, who was supposed to engage in a dialogue with our association as part of a two-year project on the “goose neck” ritual? We have heard nothing from her, even though her mission was supposed to have begun last April. Determined to “preserve [their] traditions”, especially those that involve bloodshed, local actors are doing an about-face using the most devious methods. Without our renewed action, according to our information, this year the animals will be decapitated in secret, in front of a select audience. No one will see, no one will know.
We are therefore mobilising once again by alerting the public
This outdated practice is just as shocking as cockfighting, pig racing and other “games” involving bulls, which we are up in arms against. We refuse to admit defeat and are once again calling for the festivities in Arfeuilles and Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom to renounce cruelty. Sign to say stop to these senseless mutilations.
One Voice is appealing to the authorities in the regions of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme
We are ready to knock on every door to get the game of “goose neck” abandoned in Arfeuilles and Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, and so we have written to the DDPP (Departmental Directorate for Protection of Populations) in the regions of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme. We remind the State services that these atrocities continue to be committed in these municipalities by young people, on animals killed specifically for this purpose.
In 2024, we had already referred the matter to the prefecture’s veterinary services regarding the patron saint’s festival in Saint-Bonnet-près-Riom, so they already have the two complaints we filed and the irregularities we noted in the village in 2023. We will do everything we can to ensure that the voice of animals is heard and that these two festivities no longer celebrate a representation of violence against sentient beings!
Beaux plans to behead a goose in secret: we are fighting back
Defending its “tradition” at all costs, the municipality of Beaux has learned nothing from the outcry caused in 2022 by images of its inhabitants enjoying themselves by hitting a goose to detach its head from its body, particularly in front of children, when we know how harmful this kind of spectacle is to their psychological development and especially to their empathy towards animals. Repeated in 2023 and 2024, this practice will take place again during the village’s patron saint festival on 23, 24 and 25 August. All this without it being clearly stated in the programme, as it is euphemised by the term ‘commemoration’… We are taking the matter to the authorities of the Haute-Loire region! Add your voice to ours by signing our petition.
