News Archive - Page 68 of 146

Faced with our appeals against digging out badgers, several prefects are yielding!

Faced with our appeals against digging out badgers, several prefects are yielding!
09.08.2022
France
Faced with our appeals against digging out badgers, several prefects are yielding!
Wildlife

In Aisne and Gard, the prefects have removed badger digging from their decrees, faced with our appeals. The first has, in an amended decree, revoked the article concerning badger digging; the second has taken out badgers and foxes. This follows several legal victories that we won for badgers, fundamentally and recently also urgently.

Photo: Claire Witham – CC BY-NC 2.0

We condemn the cruelty of digging out, a hunting technique that uses dogs to locate and keep badgers or foxes trapped at the bottom of their burrows, before hunters dig down and slaughter them mercilessly. Underground hound hunting is abominable, and leaves no way out for the animals, as we showed when we distributed our undercover investigation footage. This year, we have attacked numerous decrees allowing an extension of the period authorising hunters to indulge in ‘small game hunting’ throughout the summer, while it was already authorised during the rest of the year. Because yes, hunters demand that prefects — who do not need to be asked too much given that their decrees are often poorly justified — grant them a dispensation so that they can indulge in this macabre hobby, including during the spring and summer; in other words, whenever it suits them. Indeed, in winter, the ground is hard and they have ‘better’ things to do: shooting is permitted.

Two wins for badgers confirmed by withdrawal in Aisne and Gard!

We have just received written confirmation that, according to the Gard Prefecture, who chose to reformulate their decree to take out foxes and badgers after our appeal to the Administrative Tribunal in Nîmes*, it is now the Aisne Prefect’s turn to adapt theirs.

In Aisne, article 4 of the initial decree (the one that we were contesting) only concerns the additional period of underground hound hunting of badgers. At present, it has been completely taken out! The prefecture knew that they were going to lose and opted to repeal it. These are two victories by withdrawal. This is a win for badgers and their young, weaned but not yet independent at this time of year, but also protects the passage of other animals that are protected species with whom they often share their setts, such as wild cats, Eurasian otters, or other non-protected species such as foxes.

Administrative justice more and more often saves badgers’ lives!

These withdrawals have come in after several fundamental victories before administrative tribunals. In Saône-et-Loire, for example, we obtained a cancellation of the 2020 decree. In Gironde and Ain, we also obtained a cancellation of the 2021 prefectural decrees by the courts. But the novelty this year is that in Haute-Garonne or in Corrèze in particular, the urgent applications judge urgently suspended the decrees for the additional period of underground badger hunting with hounds after having heard our arguments. Very good news that makes us optimistic for the future.

We have filed around ten fundamental appeals this year for badgers, which will be ruled on at a later stage. Others are currently being delivered, in partnership with others.

We are inviting you to support this movement against badger digging by signing the petition on the Senate’s website in large numbers. It still needs 40,000 signatures in the next month and a half; therefore, if you have not yet participated, now is the time! You can also sign the one that you will find on our site dedicated to the footage showing the true face of underground badger hunting with hounds. Together we can state loud and clear that ‘we love badgers’!

Edit from 02 September 2022:

*Contacted by the Gard Prefecture on Friday 2 September 2022, we learnt that, finally and contrary to what they had confirmed with us, the next decree will nevertheless include foxes. Only badgers have been taken out of it. The prefecture has therefore not kept their word.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Excellent news: Egyptair has put an end to transporting monkeys for labs!

Excellent news: Egyptair has put an end to transporting monkeys for labs!
08.08.2022
World
Excellent news: Egyptair has put an end to transporting monkeys for labs!
Animal testing

One Voice and its partners, Action for Primates and Stop Camarles, have recognised Egyptair’s decision to stop sending monkeys to research laboratories, in particular subjecting them to toxicity testing (poisoning). Thanks to all those who have supported our joint campaign and have contacted Egyptair to ask the airline company to put an end to its woeful flights, again showing the strength of public opinion on this issue.

We revealed the role of Egyptair for the first time in March 2022, after having been contacted by a whistle-blower from the airport staff who was outraged at the transportation of hundreds of monkeys from Cambodia to the United States. Since then, the airline company has carried several thousand monkeys from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Mauritius to suffer and die in laboratories. But it has finally stopped! Egyptair has just confirmed in an email to PETA that they have not renewed their contract in June 2022.

The worldwide trade and transportation of monkeys for laboratories is an industry rooted in suffering and cruelty. Airline companies play a key role in this chain of suffering. Egyptair is therefore the latest to date on the list of airline companies who refuse to transport monkeys to their death, which seems to be getting longer each day after recent decisions from Air France and Kenya Airways to also put an end to their involvement in the brutal trade of lives. Despite all of this being good news, we are continuing to put pressure on the airline companies who continue to carry monkeys. There can be no rest while these shipments continue to happen.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Stopping the transport of primates with Air France: we want more information

Stopping the transport of primates with Air France: we want more information
08.08.2022
France
Stopping the transport of primates with Air France: we want more information
Animal testing

At the end of June, the Twitter account for Air France Newsroom announced Air France’s decision to stop transporting primates for laboratories until the end of its current contracts. An historic commitment, which was limited to just a tweet. We have written to the airline company and still have not had a reply. Ask Air France to confirm the conditions of their commitment alongside us.

A series of innovations for primates in 2022: after Air France’s announcement and the ban on using primates born to captive parents from November 2022, we recently learnt the classification of crab-eating macaques (the primates most used in laboratories) is in the ‘endangered’ category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list. A combination of factors that frighten animal testing lobbies.

Despite this news, Air France has not responded to our letter from 1 July 2022, in which we asked for a meeting with their services in order to better understand the context and the conditions of their historic decision concerning the transport of primates.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

A radiant first victory for One Voice for the Pyrenean Brown Bears!

A radiant first victory for One Voice for the Pyrenean Brown Bears!
05.08.2022
Pyrénées
A radiant first victory for One Voice for the Pyrenean Brown Bears!
Wildlife

Victory for brown bears! The Ariège Prefect’s order of 22 June 2022 authorising simple bear scaring and scaring by non-lethal shooting during the 2022 season in the summer pastures by the shepherding group Ustou Col d’Escots has been suspended. The hearing for the six other summer pastures concerned will also take place at the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal on 8 August.

Yes, this is a radiant victory!

Because we have chosen audacity, to attack the emergency interim prefectural decree, and also to try to get the one that has in the past been attacked in substance urgently suspended. It is a first. And it has proven to have paid off for the bears!

Because when we attack an annulment decree (in substance), it can be cancelled or not, but the decision always takes place afterwards, after the order concerned has been enacted. An interim suspension order, on the other hand, allows the course of the decree to be urgently interrupted, if the judge deems there to be a good reason to put a stop to it.

Our strategy was to allow the bears some peace…

… not to suffer from bear scaring, particularly by means of sound grenades and rubber bullets (in other words, methods that are non-lethal but even so are very aggressive). These animals are protected by French and European laws, however.

By definition, there are few bears in the Pyrenees. And without supporting the ‘reintroduction’ process (capturing wild bears from Slovenia, uprooting, transporting, and releasing them in unknown surroundings), we take issue with this scaring which frightens them, can hurt them, and does not allow the pregnant females to carry their pregnancies to term.

These are not methods adapted to properly protect the few ursine individuals that inhabit our Pyrenean mountains. There are well under one hundred; their population is very much below the threshold of viability for the species. Their predation (weak; brown bears, feed mainly on vegetation remember) is far from being at the level of the measures implemented against them! It would be better to make natural spaces a sanctuary.

Hedged mountain pastures: six left to defend. This will be on 8 August

We have also appealed for interim measures for all of the other orders released by the Ariège Prefecture on this subject, which are no different from the first other than the geographical area which they relate to.

This initial victory allows us hope for the hearing set for 8 August, once again at the Toulouse Administrative Tribunal, which will concern the six mountain pastures targeted by the prefecture: those from the farming groups of Taus-Espugues, Arreau, Coumebière, Sentenac d’Oust, Izard, and finally Ourdouas.

The State Council has already cancelled the ministerial decrees of 2019 and 2020, allowing prefects to put decrees in place like the one that we just got the immediate suspension for. We have launched concurrent proceedings to get the one of 20 June 2022 cancelled and are awaiting a date in the months to come.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

We are once again taking on traditional hunting for the birds!

We are once again taking on traditional hunting for the birds!
03.08.2022
France
We are once again taking on traditional hunting for the birds!
Wildlife

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has opened a public consultation for its draft decrees to bring back cruel traditional hunting of small birds. You have until 10 August to participate. A week to save the birds from being trapped in cages and nets… We are already planning to attack them as soon as they are published.

The new minister Christophe Béchu would have preferred to be thanked for some progress, even though he expected to renew the orders that would reinstate traditional hunting of birds in 2022. And despite the repeated decisions of the State Council and the Court of Justice of the European Union in favour of the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux [League for the Protection of Birds] and One Voice since 2018… arguing that he would not issue them if the State Council decided again to cancel those he had already suspended. After multiple repeated and consistent court decisions, we thought the lesson would have been learned by the executive. But no, the Ministers for Ecology follow each other, and the massacre of wildlife continues.

So why on earth be so angry with these little birds?

The birds are already in such difficulty due to human activities. Recently, mega-fires have killed them in their thousands. Pesticides spread everywhere for years kill the insects that they feed on en masse, condemning them to famine and disappearing, which is already under way. Meanwhile, urbanisation, with its noise, nocturnal light, and depletion of natural spaces, no longer allows effective reproduction…

Why does the Ministry of Nature want to please these private interest groups so much…

… while, according to the IPSOS/One Voice survey from September 2021, the general population is moving away from hunting more and more? No doubt because our investigations have revealed their true colours: violence, impunity, anti-environmentalism, and insecurity. Incidentally, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition has even just appealed against favourable decisions for western jackdaws obtained by One Voice and Crow Life in Brittany…

It is definitely not good to be a lark, a magpie-lark, a European golden plover, or any other bird in France these days!

To participate in the public consultations for yourself and to give your constructive arguments against the decrees allowing the reintroduction of traditional hunting in the Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and Ardennes departments, you have only a week, until 10 August 2022:

Consultations on the decree projects relating to the capture of the maximum number of Eurasian skylarks that could be captured with help of traps in the Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

The Muller Circus’ display of violence towards One Voice’s activists

The Muller Circus’ display of violence towards One Voice’s activists
02.08.2022
France
The Muller Circus’ display of violence towards One Voice’s activists
Exploitation for shows

In Gap on 31 July 2022, our activists from the local One Voice office in Alpes du Sud were assaulted during a demonstration that was announced by and supervised by the police. All of this in front of journalists from the Dauphiné province and the local BFMTV channel’s cameras who were also threatened themselves. The equipment was destroyed by circus members, and our point-of-contact activist received a slap from members of the Muller family. We are filing a complaint.

Once again, as they did on our activists in Narbonne in 2018 and on law enforcement during the attempted legal seizure of Jumbo, and each time that people dare to say loud and clear what they think of the mistreatment of animals and the numerous irregularities by their circus, the Mullers use brute force. Like, also, when they intimidated the family of a truck driver during the seizure of the Masson tigers while he was on the road, or when they threatened to kill the co-founder of PAZ, threats for which they were convicted…

Nathalie et l’équipe #OneVoice04/05 se sont fait agresser, menacer, la quasi totalité du matériel a été cassé par le Cirque Muller. Plus grave, Nathalie a reçu une gifle d’un des circassiens. Soutien total. Une équipe de BFM était sur place. Nous allons déposer plainte. pic.twitter.com/MQnyKYX4RI

— One Voice (@onevoiceanimal) July 31, 2022

Illegality as a belief in this circus

The trainers had illegally installed their circus lorries and big top — the circus is sometimes called 100% international, sometimes Canadian — by deceiving the community, while our demonstration was announced by the Prefecture. Nevertheless, the animals were enclosed for the whole day in overcrowded trailer-cages in a heatwave. It was almost fifty degrees inside. At the roundabout next to Décathlon in Gap, the demonstration got worse even before the time it was supposed to start… one of the circus artists had even called the authorities before the event to warn that there would be damage if it continued. In short, a very much premeditated ambush…

Always the same modus operandi…

Lorries and vehicles used as weapons, stones and iron bars thrown by the circus performers; cardboard signs, microphones, and telephones used by our activists. No discussion is possible with the Mullers: they jump straight to intimidation and physical violence. This time, our cameras were not there to testify to this. The police were also there when the men from the Muller clan went to threaten everyone and to hit the activists. The point of contact from our local group was slapped; the materials (signs, banners, megaphone) were destroyed by the group of circus performers that came to confront them.

More than five years of fighting to save Jumbo…

Our fight to defend Jumbo goes back several years. We are the first to have investigated and revealed that the hippopotamus only left the lorry for a quick half an hour each day when the menagerie was open to the public, and that he did not have access to an outdoor pool. Contrary to what the circus repeats over and over, we also condemned the Muller Circus father and son for setting up a situation likely to cause suffering to Jumbo in 2020 and we asked the administrative judge to order the seizure of Jumbo in 2019, even if this could not happen. Since, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition awarded him with a lifetime licence for Jumbo, and renewed the one that they had for the tigers that they are keeping. Proceedings are still ongoing against the Circus, for Jumbo, the monkeys, the tigers, and the tiger cubs… as well as our activists. That makes it one more… Imagine the fate reserved for the animals they keep…

At the time of publishing this article we still do not know the full severity of the situation but we do already know that multiple videos and testimonies from our activists will be used to file a new complaint against the Mullers.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Secret transportation of monkeys for European laboratories revealed

Secret transportation of monkeys for European laboratories revealed
29.07.2022
World
Secret transportation of monkeys for European laboratories revealed
Animal testing

Information discovered by animal defence organisations has revealed the secret transportation of 240 long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) on 26 June 2022 from Vietnam to the Maastricht Airport in the Netherlands, destined for R. C. Hartelust BV, an animal dealer in Tilburg. They provide monkeys to laboratories throughout Europe. The Action for Primates (United Kingdom), Animal Rights (Netherlands), One Voice (France), and Stop Camarles (Spain) associations are campaigning to raise awareness of the cruelty and suffering linked to the trade and transportation of non-human primates for research purposes and toxicity testing.

Photo: Cruelty Free International – Long-tailed macaques in a breeding farm in Vietnam

According to our information, the macaques, costing 4000 dollars (3943 euros) each, were provided by the Thanh Cong company in the Lang Son province and were transported by Easy Charter, a small charter freight company based in Tbilisi. Imprisoned in small individual transport crates, the calvary of monkeys between Hanoi and Maastricht consisted of two international flights lasting thirteen hours, with a 2-hour stopover in Dubai.

Easy Charter’s role in transporting monkeys for laboratories was previously unknown. In June, Air France, the main transporter of monkeys from Mauritius and Vietnam into Europe, announced an end to their involvement in this trade, once its current contracts expired.

Each year, thousands of monkeys are transported around the world for laboratories

The worldwide trade of non-human primates for research purposes is a cruel and brutal activity responsible for the shipping of tens of thousands of animals around the world. Vietnam is a significant exporter of long-tailed macaques for laboratories and primate traders in Europe.

In 2020, the country stated that it had exported 5,378 macaques bred in captivity to Germany (265), Spain (1,186), France (860), and the United Kingdom (178), as well as to the United States (480), Japan (1,814), Singapore (41), and South Korea (41). Hartelust is one of the main commercial traders of primates in Europe. Others include Silabe (Simian Laboratory Europe), a company based in Niederhausbergen linked with the University of Strasbourg in France, and Camarney SL near Barcelona in Spain. Both of these import thousands of long-tailed macaques from Vietnam and Mauritius to sell in laboratories throughout Europe.

Long-tailed macaques, animals in danger

Because of concerns regarding the conservation status of this species, long-tailed macaques have recently been classified as endangered (formerly vulnerable) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

The new assessment of the conservation status of the macaque population, published by the IUCN on 21 July 2022, is based on the levels of exploitation of the species (including worldwide trade of long-tailed macaques for research and experimentation purposes) as well as on the destruction of their habitats which wipes out wild populations. It is estimated that these activities, if they are not reduced during the next three generations (between 36 and 39 years), will lead to a decline bigger or equal to half the size of the current population.

We are understandably very concerned about the impact of the capture of monkeys for breeding purposes on wild macaque populations. For a very long time, we have been equally worried about trafficking and challenge the legitimacy of monkey breeders’ claims (captured and subsequently bred in captivity) throughout the entirety of South-East Asia.

Invasive tests imposed on macaques

In 2019 (the most recent data available), 7,475 non-human primates were used for the first time in research in the EU, of which the majority (6,748) were long-tailed macaques; while this figure does not include non-human primates used or killed to obtain blood, tissue, or organs. The long-tailed macaque is the species of non-human primate that is most commercialised and most widely used by the global research industry and in toxicity testing (poisoning), including in Europe.

Toxicity testing is carried out to evaluate undesirable reactions to medications or chemical products, mainly with the aim of developing commercial products for humans. The monkeys are immobilised and medications are generally administered intravenously (into the bloodstream), subcutaneously (under the skin), or with a tube that is forced into their mouth to reach the stomach. Tests such as these involve immense suffering and can lead to vomiting, convulsions, weight loss, internal bleeding, organ failure, and even death.

Act with us!

If you are an EU citizen, you can write to your Member of the European Parliament (you can find the contact details of the French MEPs here) to report your concerns about the importation and use of non-human primates for research.
Sign the petition started by Animal Rights (choose « Andere » in the list of countries)
Write politely to Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister: https://www.government.nl/cont…
Write to Easy Charter to ask that the freight company stops transporting monkeys destined for research and testing: office@easycharter.ge

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Milly-la-Forêt puppy show: open letter to Eric Jalon, Essonne’s Prefect

Milly-la-Forêt puppy show: open letter to Eric Jalon, Essonne’s Prefect
28.07.2022
Essonne
Milly-la-Forêt puppy show: open letter to Eric Jalon, Essonne’s Prefect
Domestic animals

We have received images from a puppy show that was held in Milly-la-Forêt (91) on the weekend of 23 and 24 July 2022. Knowing that this weekend was one of the hottest of the year, we wrote to the Essonne Prefecture to draw their attention to their responsibility regarding these animals subjected to stress and intense heat.

Mr Éric Jalon
Essonne Prefect
Administrative Centre
Boulevard de France
CS10701
91010 Evry Courconnes cedex

Vannes, 27 July 2022

Dear Prefect,

Our association has been alerted about the puppy show held in Milly-la-Forêt on 23 and 24 July 2022. Two hundred and fifty breeding puppies were presented to the public and put up for sale during this event.

In our capacity as an association whose main purpose is to protect and defend animals and the environment, we hope that this letter brings your attention to several points pertaining to the welfare of the animals exhibited.

The images that we were sent show the animals being exhibited outside while the temperature came close to forty degrees. Despite there being marquees, some enclosures were predominantly in the sun. The animals seemed to be suffering from the heat (panting, lethargy) and moreover were being subjected to the stress of visitors passing by and noise. A bitch and her puppy were enclosed together in a small cage where she has no room to lie down.

Furthermore, during these events, despite being authorised by legislation in force, the animals are considered simply as merchandise, completely reified to the detriment of the respect for their individuality and their needs.

Currently, shelters and associations who care for abandoned animals, strays or those mistreated, are overwhelmed with requests and can no longer cope with the many calls for help. The organisation of the puppy show, and what is more in such conditions, appears to totally contradict with the responsibility of the owners to host a complex and sentient being.

The veterinary services for your Prefecture are appointed during such events in order to monitor compliance with the regulations in place, particularly regarding the presentation conditions and the welfare of the animals. We are surprised that the organisation of the puppy show in such circumstances has not generated any opposition on your part.

We thank you for your attention to this letter and ask that you accept our highest consideration, dear Prefect.

Muriel Arnal
Founding President of One Voice

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

More than 300,000 animals used illegally by French laboratories between 2015 and 2020

More than 300,000 animals used illegally by French laboratories between 2015 and 2020
27.07.2022
France
More than 300,000 animals used illegally by French laboratories between 2015 and 2020
Animal testing

The new report by the European Union on the figures on animal testing in 2019 has just come out. Like the previous, it reports on the use of experiments for which alternatives have existed for more than ten years. And as usual, France has a leading role in these illegal uses. One Voice has obtained a document from the Ministry of Research, thanks to which we can count more than 300,000 illegal uses from data from 2015 to 2020! We have just written to the Ministry of Research to ask for an explanation.

All in all, more than 250,000 animals have thus been used illegally in France between 2015 and 2019, while lobbies and ministries kept bragging to us about the regulations and the strict obligation to use existing alternatives. Adding in the data from 2020, available in a file obtained on request from the Ministry of Research by One Voice, it reached more than 300,000 illegal uses.

Between 2015 and 2019 within the European Union, France was responsible:

for almost 40% of pyrogen tests (measuring the onset of fever by a substance injected into rabbits), while alternative methods have been recorded in the European Pharmacopoeia since 2009;
for more than a third of skin and eye corrosion and irritation tests on rodents, rabbits, and pigs, while alternative methods were approved by the European Agency responsible for their validation (ECVAM) in the 2000s;
for 95% of uses of rodents to produce monoclonal antibodies using the painful ascites method, while since 1998, ECVAM maintains that “the production of monoclonal antibodies using the ascites method is no longer necessary, except in certain exceptional cases”.

The European Directive on the use of animals for scientific purposes nevertheless envisages that once an alternative that does not use living animals exists, it must be used. Would animal testing laboratories therefore be exempt from respecting the law? Even if we put aside the legal aspect of these uses, it is difficult to explain how France has doubled its use of rabbits for pyrogen tests while their global usage in the EU has gone down by a third. Or how the idea that monoclonal antibodies being requested “in very large quantities” by the industry can justify using a cruel method in place of the alternatives available.

Faced with a lack of action from the authorities responsible for implementing regulations, we can easily understand the public’s mistrust.

In a letter addressed to the Ministry of Research, we are asking for explanations on the reasons for these illegal uses, on the penalties expected for the responsible establishments, and on the measures implemented to ensure that no projects are accepted from now on that use animals while alternatives exist.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Hundreds of thousands of animals used illegally by French laboratories

Hundreds of thousands of animals used illegally by French laboratories
27.07.2022
Europe
Hundreds of thousands of animals used illegally by French laboratories
Animal testing

Public authorities and other organisations who champion animal testing tell us over and over again that this is only done when no alternative is available. It is in fact a legal obligation, despite article L. 214-3 of the Rural Code and the European Directive on the use of animals for scientific purposes.

So why do we still hear about pyrogenicity testing on rabbits, irritation and corrosion testing on the skin or eyes of rodents, or even the production of monoclonal antibodies thanks to the particularly harsh ascites method? In fact, alternatives have existed for years, approved by the European agency responsible for their validation (ECVAM).

Irritation and corrosion testing

The alternatives to irritation and corrosion testing on the skin and eyes were approved in 2000 and some were even the subject of a regulatory recommendation from ECVAM. However, tests on animals continue in the European Union – and in particular in France. In fact, from 2015 to 2019, more than a third of testing carried out in the EU was done in France.

Pyrogen tests

Pyrogen tests consist of injecting a substance into rabbits and measuring the onset of fever. The number of rabbits used for these tests in the European Union reduced by a third between 2015 and 2019. But France, always quick to ignore European law, swam against the current by doubling its use of rabbits for these tests in the same period. It has therefore won the award for the largest number of rabbits used for pyrogen tests in 2019, with 39% of uses in the European Union, way ahead of Spain (29%) and Germany (21%).

“Monocyte activation tests” in vitro (MAT) were nevertheless filed in 2002 with ECVAM, approved in 2006, and included in 2009 in the European pharmacopoeia as a viable alternative to the pyrogen test using rabbits.

The ‘ascites method’

But there is worse. The ‘ascites method’, a particularly cruel process for rodents and rabbits, is still topical in the European Union. To blame in 95% of cases: France.

In 1998, ECVAM were already talking about in vitro alternatives available, emphasising that “monoclonal antibody production using the ascites method is no longer scientifically necessary, except for in certain exceptional cases“. In 2020, they went even further, stating that “monoclonal production using the ascites method should no longer be acceptable, whatever the circumstances”.

Among the explanations given in the Ministry of Research’s statistical files, some are surreal. Just as, in 2019 and 2020, more than twenty thousand usages of animals were justified by the idea that “this antibody is requested in large quantities, the alternative methods cannot respond to this need”. You would think that industrial interests are more important than the law.

Where are the sanctions?

All in all, more than 300,000 animals have thus been used illegally in France between 2015 and 2020, while lobbies and ministries kept bragging to us about the regulations and the strict obligation to use existing alternatives. Faced with lies and stonewalling from the authorities responsible for implementing regulations, we can easily understand the public’s mistrust.

In a letter addressed to the Ministry of Research, we are asking for explanations of the reasons for these illegal uses, on the penalties expected for the responsible establishments, and on the measures implemented to ensure that no projects are accepted from now on that use animals while alternatives exist.

Sources

2015-2020 statistic files provided by the Ministry in charge of Research (see our presentation of these figures at https://experimentation-animale.com).
Statistical reports from the European Union (the last of which dates back to mid-July 2022, regarding the 2019 figures).

Translated from the French by Joely Justice