One Voice is opposing the Muller-Zavatta Circus in Valence on 8 March for Jumbo and the tigers

Updated 8 March 2024 at 11:30am

The Valence legal tribunal’s decision was given live: the judge declared the summons issued to the defendant by the public prosecutor null and void and declared One Voice inadmissible.

We will therefore wait for the prosecution to start things from scratch in these proceedings. In any case, we have other complaints against the Muller Circus on more serious matters that are currently being processed.

Our rallying for Jumbo and the tigers remains vital: we will fight for as long as animals remain in circuses!

Tigers and lionesses imprisoned in minuscule enclosures, monkeys shut up in cages, llamas grazing on the edge of a dual carriageway… In 2020 and 2021 in Nîmes and Vedène, among the other animals exploited by the Muller Circus, Jumbo, always alone, was either locked in the truck that served as a jail, in a swimming pool that he was not able to get out of on his own, or placed in an enclosure with nothing else to do but graze endlessly. The barriers separating him from visitors, and especially children, were so risky that a catastrophe could happen at any moment and no one would be spared — neither the humans nor the hippopotamus. Risks that we have spoken out about on many occasions but which the Mullers do not care about: despite a conviction in 2019, the circus artists persist and endorse it.

While Jumbo was stagnating in his solitude, they were busy carrying the tiger cubs around at arm’s length to exhibit them to the public. Separated from their mother and handled roughly, they were just as easily confronted by the deafening din of the big top as they were by children’s hands, all completely illegally.

The Mullers: expert repeat offenders in abuse and offending

Since these two complaints were submitted, the Muller Circus has tried to build their image back up by changing their name, taking on the Zavatta name. But their illegal facilities in the towns where they forcibly impose their miserable travelling troop, their exploitation of submissive animals, and even their violence towards our activists and against police have continued… So much so that Edmond Muller, the family patriarch, has just been convicted, on 1 March 2024, for hitting and insulting two peaceful activists from the Alliance Ethique [Ethical Alliance] and One Voice. A hearing will also take place on 20 March at the State Council to determine whether the authorisation given to Frank and Edmond Muller to keep and exhibit Jumbo to the public will (finally!) be cancelled and if Jumbo will be sent to a sanctuary. The Ministry of Agriculture, who we faced, indicated that they did not produce any documents in this matter… so we have hope. Our investigations continue, again and again revealing the regrettable living conditions in which Jumbo, the tigers, monkeys, and so many other animals are kept, with complaints being filed one after the other at the same pace. We will never stop.

We will be at the Valence legal tribunal on 8 March 2024 at 8:30am for them. Join us by signing our petition to save Jumbo.