The demonstrators were nearly 250 according to the police and 500 according to the organizers, gathered around the collective "Angry hunters of France".
"We must not be prohibited from hunting on weekends, during the week we work like everyone else" denounced Sébastien Auduberteau, president of the Association des sauvaginiers de Nouvelle-Aquitaine and member of the collective.
According to him, hunters and opponents "can have the same objective: to protect the environment, nature and habitats".
The procession marched in peace on a route bypassing the Bordeaux city center, after symbolically depositing, "by tradition", several decorated trees, "in a wink" to the decision of the mayor EELV of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic to remove the municipal Christmas tree last year.
The demonstrators also demanded the right to hunt greylag goose an additional month after the official end currently set for January 31, and recalled their opposition to the legal ban on traditional bird hunts (thrushes, blackbirds, lapwing, golden plovers, skylarks with nets or cages).
At the end of October, the EELV presidential candidate Yannick Jadot proposed a ban on hunting during weekends and school holidays.
An idea "on which we must have a debate" then estimated the Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili.
© 2021 AFP