Same reason, same result: the Council of State on Friday suspended authorizations for traditional lark hunting granted in certain departments by the government, satisfying the associations which accuse the President of the Republic of having wanted to give a gift to the hunters .

The interim judge of the Council of State, seized by the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO) and One Voice, considered that the decrees issued by the government on October 4 risked contravening European law on the protection of birds and that there was thus “a serious doubt as to their legality”, according to the decision consulted by AFP.

"An umpteenth snub to Emmanuel Macron"

"The Council of State inflicts yet another snub on Emmanuel Macron who persists in wanting to authorize these medieval practices and already deemed illegal under pressure from hunters", reacted on Twitter the LPO.

“My dream would be for the Ministry of Ecological Transition to be concerned about birds that are disappearing rather than to offer leisure to hunters,” said the president of One Voice, Murielle Arnal, who went against Minister Christophe. Béchu: "he had said (in front of the deputies, editor's note) that he would wait for the decision of our appeals last year to authorize or not these hunts".

A year earlier, in October 2021, the decrees authorizing traditional hunts for larks and other birds (thrushes, blackbirds, lapwings, golden plovers) had already been suspended for similar reasons, via the same procedure. urgency of the referral.


⚖️ The @Conseil_Etat inflicts yet another snub on @EmmanuelMacron who persists in wanting to authorize these medieval practices and already deemed illegal under pressure from hunters.

It is time for these recurrences to finally stop!

✊



Read our CP ▶️ https://t.co/sAMnCreJV8 https://t.co/S96bJljI5b

– LPO France (@LPOFrance) October 21, 2022

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Substantive hearing Monday

But the decision on the merits of these cases has not yet been rendered.

The hearing is to be held Monday before the Council of State.

Without waiting, the government had resumed authorization decrees, only this time for the lark.

“I assume the decision that has been taken,” declared Minister Christophe Béchu on Franceinfo on October 8, the day after the publication of the decrees, without specifying who the decision-maker was.

In their reactions, the associations had directly implicated the President of the Republic.

A first text authorized the capture of the lark "using pairs of horizontal nets (+pantes +)" in Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques, from October 1 to November 20.

A second decree specified the number of captures authorized with “pantes” for the 2022-2023 season, i.e. up to 56,672 in the Landes.

Another text authorized hunting using trap cages (“matoles”) in the Landes and Lot-et-Garonne from October 1 to November 20, again with quotas of a few thousand individuals.

Non-selective hunting methods

The European "birds" directive of 2009, however, prohibits the techniques of mass capture of birds without distinction of species.

But a derogation is possible “provided that it is duly motivated and when there is no other satisfactory solution” to capture certain birds”.

However, considers the judge, "the Minister has not demonstrated that these traditional hunting methods would be the only ones making it possible to capture skylarks in these departments", a result which can be obtained "by shooting or breeding”, explains a press release from the Council of State.

In addition, the judge "notes that the methods thus authorized lead to the capture of other birds, and cannot be considered as selective", since "at least 15 to 20% of other bird species are in fact captured by worms”.

"The Minister does not provide any figures for the + pantes +, whose nets can measure up to 50 m2, with meshes that do not allow other birds to escape", further notes the Council of State, at the risk "significant damage" to protected species.

"If the contested decisions also highlight the objective of preserving a so-called + traditional + hunting method, this reason was considered by the Court of Justice of the European Union as not being sufficient", concludes the press release. .

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