Executive Summary
France does not have an overall legislative act dedicated to animal welfare, rather, animal protection provisions are laid out in the Penal Code, the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code, as well as secondary legislation in the form of Decrees. Animal cruelty including acts of ill-treatment and acts of negligence is prohibited. Furthermore, the abandonment of companion animals is prohibited. There is also a duty of care onto companion animal owners and breeders, set out in Decree of 25 October 1982. Various other Decrees transpose EU legislation within French legislation.
Since the API was first published in 2014, the Civil Code was amended in 2015 to recognise that animals are sentient beings, as formerly they were considered to be ‘moveable or immoveable assets’. This definition, however, remains limited as it only applies to vertebrates, and does not encompass wild animals nor ownerless domesticated animals. Furthermore, animals remain subject to the regime of goods.
France’s main agriculture and food law, Law No. 2018-938 passed on 30 October 2018 entitled ‘loi pour l’équilibre des relations commerciales dans le secteur agricole et alimentaire et une alimentation saine, durable et accessible à tous (EGalim)’, includes several measures relating to animal welfare. Among others, the legislation extends the offence for animal abuse in rearing to transport and slaughter activities, and it doubles the sentence for animal abuse from six months imprisonment and a €7,500 fine to one-year imprisonment and a €15,000 fine.
However, there is room for improvement in many areas related to animal welfare. In particular, bullfighting and cockfighting are exempted from the basic anti-cruelty provisions laid out in Article 521-1 of the Penal Code. The use of animals for entertainment, such as in circuses and in marine mammal shows, is largely authorised in France, although there was an attempt to ban the breeding of dophins in captivity that passed in May 2017, before being repealed in January 2018. Furthermore, France still allows fur farming and the force-feeding of geese and ducks for foie gras production. Decree No. 85-956 also allows the culling of dogs ‘suspected’ of having rabies. With regards to wild animals, it is regrettable that current President Emmanuel Macron has reduced the price of hunting permits and has increased the list of species allowed to be hunted, as well as the quotas for each of these species.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is responsible for the protection of most animals. The Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition – which is in practice the Ministry of the Environment – is responsible for issues concerning free-roaming wild animals and collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food on issues concerning captive wild animals. The issue of animal experimentation is covered by several Ministries, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food has developed a 2016-2020 Strategy on Animal Welfare, and has assigned responsibility to the National Committee of Plant and Animal Health (CNOPSAV), made up of farmers, scientists, animal protection organisations, to implement this Strategy. Various institutions are responsible for managing the use of animals in scientific research, among which FRANCOPA, which promotes alternatives to animal research.
The Government of France is urged to amend the provisions of the Civil Code, the Penal Code and the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code to recognise that all animals for whom there is scientific evidence – at a minimum, all vertebrates, cephalopods and decapods crustaceans – are sentient beings, and to enshrine this principle into legislation. The Government of France is urged to ban the confinement of farm animals – for instance, in sow stalls for pigs, and in cages for egg-laying hens – and the Government is urged to mandate the humane slaughter of all farm animals, with stunning prior to slaughter. The Government of France is furthermore urged to ban fur farming, which is inherently cruel, causing pain and distress to animals. As culture should not be an excuse for animal cruelty, the Government of France is urged to repeal the cultural exemptions that currently allow bullfighting, cockfighting and the force-feeding of ducks and geese to operate legally. The Government of France is also strongly encouraged to prohibit all forms of entertainment causing animal suffering, such as rodeos, circuses and marine mammal shows. Further legal and policy recommendations are associated with each Animal Protection Index (API) indicator and contained in the relevant sections of this report.