Pouring public money into illegal circuses. How far will the State go to protect these offenders?

Pouring public money into illegal circuses. How far will the State go to protect these offenders?
24.02.2026
France
Pouring public money into illegal circuses. How far will the State go to protect these offenders?
Exploitation for shows

In May 2025, the Ministry for Ecological Transition unveiled a financial support plan for travelling circuses. One Voice immediately denounced the abandonment of animals, left in the hands of their torturers with no hope of joining a sanctuary. In recent weeks,
this project took further shape when the Service and Payment Agency presented the financial aid planned for circuses. One Voice has contacted this State operator to request that establishments condemned by the courts or not complying with the law should not receive any public funding.

Animals being illegally detained or subjected to despicable trafficking, illicit breeding and births, mistreatment, fraud… Many circuses flout the law in order to make ever more profit from those they drag around from town to town. And now, at the request of the State, taxpayers are expected to pay these same criminals handsomely… so that they may continue to abuse animals in sedentary establishments?

Endless violence

While we have always fought against the endless suffering of captive animals, the legalnsystem is also beginning to recognise the facts. In November 2022, trainer Mario Masson was found guilty, among other offences, of mistreating ten tigers locked up 24 hours a day in acage truck. We had rescued them from this abominable fate two years earlier. And he is far from being the only circus owner from whose clutches we have rescued mistreated animals. Steve Gougeon was convicted of mistreating the lion Jon and the lionesses Céleste, Patty, Hannah and Marli and for keeping lions without identifying them. A few weeks before the court is decision, the director of the Cirque de Paris had left two llamas,two camels, two horses and two cows abandoned in a field in the middle of winter for nearly three months…
Whether for mistreatment or illegal exploitation, the circus operators of the Cirque William Zavatta, the Nouveau Cirque Triomphe and the Cirque de Rome were also found guilty bythe courts.

Illegal births

One might think that the trainers would stop there in their indecency. This is not the case. Although reproduction has been banned in travelling establishments since 1 December 2023, many have largely ignored the 2021 law against animal abuse.
Tiger cubs continued to be born at Cirque Boletti, Cirque Europa, Cirque Franco-Belge, Cirque Muller-Zavatta, and others. In the Tarn region, at the establishment ‘Au cœur des félins’, three babies were born as recently as 30 June, prompting us to report the matter to the authorities. And what about the Cirque Claudio Zavatta, which we investigated, documenting the birth of nine lion cubs in the summer of 2024, after it cowardly abandoned nine adult lions who were old or in poor health?

An elephant brutally ‘disappeared’

After more than three decades of exploitation, trainer Max Aucante took advantage of the government is inaction to sell Samba to a sedentary Hungarian circus, without anyone noticing. This meant there was no need to comply with the law or to place her in a sanctuary,
even though we had been offering for years to take care of her transfer to a dignified retirement home. And that is not all. To get rid of the elephant, the trainer did not submit any of the mandatory authorisation requests to CITES or the veterinary services.

We have lodgeda request, and an investigation is underway. We have written to the Service and Payment Agency to inform them of these multiple convictions. We call on them not to grant aid to circus operators responsible for mistreatment and illegal exploitation. These offences, like the immense suffering of the animals, should not be rewarded with public money or encouraged to continue. To take further action, sign our petition to end the exploitation of animals in circuses. Pouring public money into illegal circuses. How far will the State go to protect these offenders?

One Voice writes to the Service and Payment Agency to oppose State

A lion cub exploited in a video clip: appeal hearing on 17 February in Paris

A lion cub exploited in a video clip: appeal hearing on 17 February in Paris
16.02.2026
France
A lion cub exploited in a video clip: appeal hearing on 17 February in Paris
Exploitation for shows

In 2017, this very young lion was taken from his mother, who was being held captive in a circus, to be sold and exploited in a video clip. Reported to the authorities by a whistleblower, he was found to be very weak and showing signs of beatings. On 17 February at 9am, the Court of Appeal in Paris will examine this case which was tried in the first instance in 2022. One Voice will be present in court to defend this little feline, denounce trafficking linked to circuses, and remind everyone that these illegal practices continue to break individuals, far from the public eye.

Crédit photo : © Pompiers de Paris.

The events date back to 2017. Thanks to images posted on social media, the authorities discovered that a young feline was being held in an apartment in Seine-Saint-Denis. Presented as a ‘little tiger’, it was in fact a lion cub. Purchased for a video clip from circus performers based in Normandy, then transported by car to Seine-Saint-Denis, it found itself locked up in an apartment in Noisy-le-Sec.

A stolen childhood

At this age, a lion cub should be suckling its mother and beginning to learn about life. But, confined to the back of a circus trailer, separated from his family too soon, the cub was immediately subjected to greed and exploitation. When police officers found him in Noisy-le-Sec, he was suffering from multiple conditions – dehydration, parasites, nutritional deficiencies – and had a broken tooth and wounds on his nose and skull. Seized in extremis, he was taken into care at a shelter.

The man being prosecuted admitted to having looked for a lion cub for the filming of a video clip. He admitted to having brought him from a circus and keeping him in an apartment, then, on the day of his arrest, claimed that he no longer had him in his possession. How can such acts be justified and how can one claim to be caring for an animal that was purchased illegally and then transported from one flat to another in order to hide it from the authorities? His lies did not last long: the young animal was found the same day, weak, injured and traumatised in the flat.

Circus performers willing to do anything

This case is not an isolated one. The networks involving circuses feed other markets, particularly those of taxidermists, where animals, whether alive or dead, are nothing more than commodities.

In 2018, the young lioness Cersei was seized by customs after passing through the same networks. These cases are part of the activities that we have been denouncing for years, particularly trafficking and mistreatment.

On 17 February at 9am, the Court of Appeal in Paris will once again examine this case. We will be present in court to defend this lion cub and to remind everyone that animals are individuals in their own right. Take action with us, sign and share our petition so that circus animals finally have a voice.

Update 17.02.2026

The verdict will be handed down on 24 March.

A lion cub exploited in a music video: appeal hearing on 17 February in Paris

Sold by a circus, mistreated and locked up in an apartment, a lion cub will be at the centre of an appeal hearing on 17 February.

Baby has died: chronicle of an abject abandonment

Baby has died: chronicle of an abject abandonment
30.01.2026
Tunisie
Baby has died: chronicle of an abject abandonment
Exploitation for shows

Baby, an African elephant captured in the wild as a calf, for whom One Voice has fought for two decades, died yesterday at the Belvédère Zoo in Tunis. After more than thirty years of abuse and political failings, her death is no accident: it is the result of a system that sacrifices wild animals amid a general indifference.

A stolen life of boundless cruelty

Baby was only two years old in 1985 when she was torn from her family on the African savannah. Like so many other baby elephants, she was captured to feed the entertainment industry. From then on, her life was no longer her own.
Baby was trained, violently, by Gilbert Yeuk Bauer, to endure all forms of humiliation: degrading circus acts, film shoots, television shows, commercials, commercial events and private events. Rented out like an object, presented everywhere as a veritable
freak show, for anything and everything, Baby never knew any respect, let alone freedom. When she was not being exhibited, she was locked up in the darkness of a circus truck. She was spared nothing. Alerts ignored, responsibilities evaded
Since 2005, One Voice has been following Baby’s ordeal. Investigations, reports, legal action, offers to take her into a sanctuary: everything has been tried. Convictions were obtained against her trainer. However, Baby was never taken away
from him. The authorities let it happen.
In 2023, her operator got rid of her by sending her to a Tunisian zoo, without any
intervention from the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. This transfer felt like an
additional sentence, far from prying eyes and from responsibilities.

The Belvédère Zoo: the final prison

In the summer of 2023, One Voice visited the Belvédère Zoo in Tunisia. This place is known for its serious shortcomings: in 2017, for example, a crocodile was killed by stones thrown by visitors.
Baby was surviving there alone, even though elephants are deeply social animals. She was suffering from serious leg problems and was not receiving appropriate care. Permanently exposed to the public, she was subjected to intrusions, littering, and
inappropriate food given to her by visitors who crossed the barriers.

Baby’s death is the result of political choices, administrative failings and a system that continues to tolerate the exploitation of wild animals by circus trainers. Her death forces us to face up to what the entertainment and captivity industry does to animals.
We refuse to allow others to suffer the same fate, like the hippopotamus Jumbo who is soon to be the next victim.

Baby is dead: chronicle of an abject abandonment

Baby, an elephant exploited throughout her life, has died in Tunis. A symbol of a
complicit system, the French authorities abandoned her.