November 24 hearing in Béthune: justice for the roosters tortured in Norrent-Fontes
On November 24 at 1:30 p.m., at the Béthune legal tribunal, the trial will be held of a cockfighting organizer from Norrent-Fontes (Pas-de-Calais). Between 2021 and 2025, he illegally revived a sadistic practice that had disappeared from this town in 1999. We will be there to remind everyone that “tradition” cannot justify violence.
A practice from another time
Behind the closed doors of the cockfighting arenas, roosters fight to the death. These animals, mutilated and made aggressive by human hands, suffer for the simple pleasure of a bloodthirsty audience. Their combs are cut, their beaks are filed down, and sometimes blades or metal spurs are attached to them to increase the injuries inflicted on their opponents. All this for a bet, a thrill, a “tradition” that some refuse to see disappear and which children can watch, accustoming them from an early age to the glorification of sadism towards animals.
These scenes of extreme violence are neither part of our heritage nor our culture. The images we revealed in the summer of 2025 show what these “fights” really are: synonymous with suffering, stress, and often a slow and painful death, all to the applause of a complicit audience.
Norrent-Fontes: a tradition interrupted since 1999
Like bullfighting, these fights are acts of cruelty and are banned throughout France. However, an unjust exception remains in cases of “uninterrupted local tradition”. In Norrent-Fontes, this practice had ceased since 1999. Despite this, an organizer has revived the fights between 2021 and 2025, even though the prefect of Pas-de-Calais revoked his authorization in 2022. The Lille Administrative Court, in a ruling on December 26, 2024, confirmed that holding these fights in the municipality was simply illegal.
Béthune: a date with justice and compassion
We will be present at the Béthune legal tribunal on November 24 at 1:30 p.m. to make the voice of animals heard, support the prefect’s action, and remind everyone that the law must be applied everywhere, without exception or complacency. This trial is not just about one organizer: it symbolizes the resistance of an old world, one where violence against animals could still be hidden behind the word “tradition”.
Citizens are increasingly rejecting these cruel spectacles. Respect for living beings, compassion, and justice have become shared values. Cockfighting is not a heritage to be preserved, but suffering to be abolished. Together, let’s call for an end to these cruel spectacles: sign our petition!