Illegal trade in animals on Leboncoin: the courts turn a blind eye
Despite the law of 2021, thousands of unregistered cats and dogs have continued to be advertised on the website Leboncoin. In 2023 alone, the Toulouse-based association ‘L’école du chat libre’ recorded 4,500 illegal adverts concerning nearly 11,000 animals in just a few months. Together, we then took the matter to court. After more than two years of proceedings, the court dismissed the case on the grounds of ‘good faith’. This is a worrying decision that highlights the issue of online trade in animals, trafficking and abandonment.
In France, all dogs and cats must be identified by a microchip or a tattoo. When they are sold online, online advertising platforms such as Leboncoin must ensure that identification is present and are obliged to verify this information. This principle is not a recommendation. It is a legal obligation laid down by the law of November 2021. Its aim is clear: to put an end to the lucrative trade carried out at the expense of our pets and the collateral damage that goes with it: trafficking and abandonment.
What Leboncoin is doing
As early as 2021, Leboncoin should have taken action and put a verification system in place. Instead, the platform turned a blind eye. As a result, for years, thousands of animals were sold without identification, sometimes before they had reached the legal age. In 2023, together with our partner, L’école du chat libre in Toulouse, we lodged a complaint. This complaint was well-founded, backed up by a meticulous survey of 4,500 illegal adverts concerning nearly 11,000 animals between April and November 2023. We were simply asking for the law to be enforced.
What the courts are saying
We recently received a ruling dismissing the case. Yet the court acknowledged that: yes, Leboncoin had failed to put a monitoring system in place after 2021; yes, adverts were published for years after the legislation came into force. But the platform is considered to have acted ‘in good faith’ because its monitoring system was not yet operational.
A company can thus flout the law for two years, then eventually comply with it because it is being prosecuted, without facing any further consequences. It could at the very least have suspended the publication of adverts while waiting for the monitoring system to be up and running, but it did not do so. Case closed. In the meantime, thousands of animals are paying the price for this inaction.
The internet: a supermarket for living beings
Every day, adverts for dogs and cats spring up on these platforms. Heart-warming photos, enticing promises, immediate availability: everything encourages impulse buying. But behind these adverts lie clandestine breeding operations – veritable puppy and kitten factories churning out animals in conditions of utter distress to meet a demand fuelled by the immediacy of a click. Not to mention the many private individuals who also feed into this system, failing to neuter their pets and giving away or selling unwanted litters.
People want a cute, cheap puppy – right now. The buyer sometimes receives a sick, traumatised, unidentified animal, making any traceability impossible.
From advert to abandonment
These online sales have direct consequences. Animals acquired on a whim are more likely to be abandoned: because care is expensive, because holidays are coming up, or because a move disrupts daily life. In France, tens of thousands of animals are abandoned in this way every year; the luckiest end up in shelters, while the others end up in animal pounds. For the latter, time is of the essence. Once the statutory eight-day period has passed, if they are not claimed, they are put down.
The law of 2021 aimed to put an end to this vicious circle. Leboncoin continued to flout it for years. And today, the courts rule: ‘in good faith’.
This dismissal of the case does not erase the facts. It does not dampen our resolve. More than ever, we remain vigilant against illegal adverts, we will continue to document them, to call for an outright ban on online donations and sales, and to demand a national neutering programme. In this fight, everyone can take action. By writing to Leboncoin*, and reporting suspicious adverts, you are helping to bring about change. Join the fight with us!
* A template letter is available by clicking on this link.
Illegal trade in animals on Leboncoin: the courts turn a blind eye
Thousands of animals sold illegally on Leboncoin: ‘in good faith’, according to the courts.