The images may offend some people.

After the broadcast of a video by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation (FBB) on a horse fair in Maurs in Cantal, the Aurillac prosecution opened a preliminary investigation on Thursday.

The foundation of the former actress denounces "serious abuse" inflicted on animals.

"Given the elements denounced by the press, a preliminary investigation is opened on its own initiative today and entrusted to the gendarmerie brigade of Maurs", declared to AFP the prosecutor of Aurillac, Paolo Giambiasi, specifying that the prosecution had "no trace" of a complaint in this case.

In the video, we see horses piled up in narrow paddocks, in panic, some trying to escape by jumping the barriers.

Those who refuse to board the trucks are beaten.

Horses have open wounds on their limbs or head.

Asked whether the animals are examined by a veterinarian on the spot, one of the filmed organizers answers with a pithy "no".


#FoiredeMaurs


Shame and anger!

I call on the French to support my fight against this unbearable, daily and trivialized violence, I ask you to help me put an end to horse eating!

pic.twitter.com/SwGufDRzNL

- BRIGITTE BARDOT (@brigitte_bardot) December 8, 2022

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“Immoral Fairs”

By denouncing "the suffering suffered by these animals", the FBB says it wishes "to alert to the fate reserved for too many equines still bred to be slaughtered and consumed and to call on the government to put an end to these immoral and irresponsible fairs".

“For me, there is no abuse.

I don't see any abuse in the video.

We see herders there who push the animals with a stick, but how do you want to make them move forward?

With the hand?

“, declared to AFP Roger Condamine, president of the committee of the horse fairs of Maurs and mayor of Saint-Saury.

“The gendarmes patrolled, and no one came to see them to report abuse.

There was a vet there all day, and there was no problem,” he said.

In an open letter, of which AFP obtained a copy, Brigitte Bardot asks the Minister of Agriculture to "sanction" the organizer and "no longer authorize him to organize new gatherings".

According to the French Horse and Riding Institute (IFCE), 5,252 horses were killed in slaughterhouses in France in 2021.

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