30 millions d’amis, a French animal welfare foundation, has released a shocking film in order to demand that presidential candidates in 2022 address animal welfare issues in their election campaigns.
The video was released on November 8th, along with the statement, “Let us no longer be deaf to animal suffering!”
It depicts an abandoned dog, a deer stalked and wounded by hunters, pigs crammed into a truck bound for the slaughterhouse, a ‘pardoned’ bull mutilated after a bullfight, a monkey tortured in an experimental laboratory, and a circus bear locked in a cramped cage.
Everyone is howling in pain, hence the tagline “no longer remain deaf” to the cries.
According to Reha Hutin, president of la Fondation 30 millions d’amis, the video is a call to all presidential candidates to engage with the urgent issue.
She stated:
“Abandonment, hunting abuses, the excesses of intensive breeding, bullfighting, animal experimentation, the exploitation of wild animals in circuses…
“It is high time that politicians took into account animal protection as a whole. Even if there have been recent proposals for legislation, we are far from achieving this.
“We need to go much further and for the candidates to commit themselves in their programmes to improve all animals’ lot. We can no longer remain deaf to their suffering.”
A voice for’sensitive, living beings’
In recent years, animal welfare has become a major topic of public debate.
Activist groups such as L214 and the Fondation Brigitte Bardot are among those igniting regular debate with campaigns aimed at drawing attention to animals in distress and advocating for more legislation to protect them.
The French parliament recently voted on a historic bill on animal suffering, and in 2015, for the first time, a law officially recognized an animal as a “sensitive, living being.”
A major campaign led by Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Xavier Niel, and Marc Simoncini called for a referendum on major animal protection laws in mid-2020, with over a million people in France supporting the six key proposals.
The Fondation 30 millions d’amis conducted a poll with Ifop for its annual barometer, dubbed ‘Les Français et le Bien-être des Animals (The French Public and Animal Well-Being),’ and discovered that animal welfare issues appear to be high on the public’s agenda.
It revealed:
69 percent believe that politicians do not adequately protect animals.
To combat pet abandonment, 64 percent support prohibiting the sale of pets through classified ads and pet stores.
77 percent of those polled support a ban on hound hunting.
85 percent support the abolition of intensive breeding.
Bullfighting is opposed by 75% of people.
If alternative methods exist, 89 percent support a total ban on animal experimentation.
Wild animals in circuses are opposed by 72 percent of respondents.
