Paris (AFP)

The announcements made Tuesday by the Minister of Agriculture on animal welfare, including the crushing of chicks and the live castration of piglets, which will be banned at the end of 2021, lack ambition, in the eyes of NGOs campaigning for the cause animal.

For shredding chicks, "the objective is to force companies and research to do this at the end of 2021, (...) find the technique that works on a large scale," said Didier Guillaume on BFMTV-RMC. about this very controversial practice used in animal husbandry.

"These announcements have already been made, especially on the shredding of chicks and above all we do not see the action plan, nor of registration in the law," reacted to AFP, Brigitte Gothière, co-founder of L214.

"It does not tackle the basic problem. There is nothing on the conditions for slaughtering animals, nor on the plan to exit intensive farming," she added, calling for " concrete and ambitious actions ". The NGO claims that the government "at least abolishes the conditions of slaughter recognized as the most painful, such as slaughter without stunning or the slaughter of pigs with carbon dioxide".

For L214, there can be no progress unless "animal welfare comes from the Ministry of Agriculture" which "is a bit like the puppet of the FNSEA, of the intensive breeding lobby".

For the animal welfare association Welfarm, campaigning against the castration of live piglets since 2016, "the only viable alternative, both for animals and for breeders, is the outright cessation of castration, in other words the breeding of whole males or immunocastration ".

"The political response provided is far below the ethical, environmental and societal requirements. We are far from the promised" revolution "!", The Foundation posted on Twitter 30 million friends. According to an Ifop survey carried out in January at the request of the Foundation, 75% of French people consider that the government does not take animal protection sufficiently into account in its action.

Christophe Marie, spokesperson for the Bardot Foundation, "worries" for his part about the methods to put an end to the live castration of piglets which is moving towards local anesthesia.

"It would be practiced by breeders who are not veterinarians. Who will control?", He questions. He also denounces the "back pedaling of the government" to get out of the production of eggs from caged hens, which was according to him "one of the commitments of Emmanuel Macron at the time of the presidential election".

Jean-Charles Fombonne, president of the SPA, praised the "good will on chicks and piglets", even if he would have preferred the ban to come into force earlier.

However, he criticized the minister's comments on bullfighting: "The arguments made by Mr. Guillaume on good bull rearing are unacceptable, in terms of animal protection. But it will be understood that in this area, the balancing act is even more difficult for the candidate for mayor of Biarritz ".

© 2020 AFP