The cases of mutilation of horses have multiplied in France this summer.

Severed ears, slashed paws: abuse, very violent, has been reported in ten departments.

In Switzerland, equine owners are worried and repatriate their animals, boarding on the other side of the border. 

REPORTAGE

After numerous cases of mutilation of ponies and horses in recent weeks in a dozen departments of France, fear is now spreading to neighboring countries.

In Switzerland, a neighboring country to the Jura where five acts of cruelty occurred in August, equine owners are worried.

Some, who had boarded their animals in France, are starting to repatriate them.

Severed ears, genital mutilation, lacerated bodies: the abuse accelerated during the summer.

The Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, even went on August 29 to an equestrian center, promising "a mobilization of all services so that justice passes".

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"These horses are the family"

Anouk Thibaud, owners of four Comtois horses, did not want to wait.

This owner of a refuge for equines, located near Geneva, collected her animals at the end of last week on the other side of the border, in Mijoux, in the Jura massif.

Obelix, an imposing male, and his three mares, had been in boarding school since the beginning of the summer, but the last acts of mutilation which took place thirty kilometers away finally convinced her to cut short their stay in France.

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"It's been haunting us day and night for two weeks. All this abuse is approaching the border," she says.

"These horses are the family. Obelix, I've had him for 20 years, he's a lifelong companion. It's really barbarism."

"It's unlivable" 

The Swiss owner is not the only one to have made this decision, as Jean-Marc Lanson, the Jura farmer who took care of his horses, understands.

"I fully understand the choice to bring the animals back down this year. They were safer," he says.

"I still have horses, we brought them closer to the body of the farm to have them relatively close to our eyes".

"The attacks can occur at night as well as during the day, and therefore it is unlivable", adds the farmer.

The patrols of gendarmes have multiplied in the area in recent days to try to stem these acts of violence, without success for the moment.