After our latest revelations about the living hell experienced by mink on a farm in Eure-et-Loir, and as Paris Fashion Week opens, we are revealing images from three other French farms. Everywhere horrific scenes, everywhere the suffering of beings. There are still five establishments still active in our country. Let us mobilize together to demand their closure. France cannot be complicit in such cruelty any longer!
Last July, we denounced the appalling conditions of mink detained on a farm in Eure-et-Loir. However, the particularly unbearable and revolting images that we have published give only a partial idea of the ordeal inflicted on these victims of the fur trade … This week, we are revealing images filmed in the different mink farms in our country, which testify to a generalized drama, hollow reflection of a Parisian Fashion Week which takes its first eco-responsible steps but continues to deny, year after year, the plight of animals bred for their coats. In 2017, we revealed the conditions of detention and killing of minks on French farms. We hoped for an improvement, alas there is no improvement.
An omnipresent horror
Whatever their place of sequestration in Spincourt (Meuse), Montarlot-lès-Rioz (Haute-Saône), La Chapelle-d’Andaine (Orne) and Champrond-en-Gâtine (Eure-et-Loir), these mink – who by nature are solitary, eager for space and exercise – are condemned to living in crowded and confined conditions. Crammed into often filthy cages, they suffocate in a squalid atmosphere where stench and despair reign supreme.
While the porridge type meals are distributed over their heads and directly onto the wire cages in a row, the droppings drip under the cages and spread on the ground. Driven crazy with distress and exhaustion, these poor prisoners spend their lives biting each other, shearing their legs and tearing their teeth against the bars. Their injuries, often extremely serious, remain untreated. They bleed and get infected.
This tenfold suffering of these abandoned souls only adds to their stereotypical movements … to the point of exhaustion. We have called this place “the farm of horrors” and of which our complaint is for (among other things) acts of cruelty takes its course, the corpses piled up on one another. Their confinement has also led to cannibalism, non-existent in the wild. On these farms, we see “premature” deaths which are considered as “waste” by those who exploit these minks. Among the thousands of poor souls doomed to a certain death, these few losses do not affect profits.
Following the reception of a letter from the Prefecture, which was expected but disappointing, we filed an appeal against this graceful refusal of July 25th, 2019 to suspend the activity or to close the Eure-et-Loir farm.
Labelled cruelty
We cannot tolerate such monstrous acts of cruelty from continuing! They are also causing a major ecological disaster, especially due to the tons of excrement from animals that end up in waterways and pollute them! Getting five farms closed is far from an insurmountable economic challenge: other countries, such as Norway and the Netherlands, have already embarked on this process where their fur production is much higher. Paris Fashion Week, which opens its doors this Monday September 23rd, is trying to make itself greener but still refuses any progress on the use of fur in the creations presented.
Some major players in the fashion industry, however, committed to the last G7 in Biarritz in August 2019 around a “Fashion Pact”: commitments in favour of the climate, biodiversity and the oceans. Our government must have the courage to imitate its neighbours and definitively ban this activity on our territory.
Cruel irony, the five national farms have all inherited the “animal welfare” label approved by the European Union. We are going to ask him for their accounts… Who are we kidding?! With us, express your opposition to this organized, authorized, legitimized violence by public authorities and politicians.
In 2019, let’s put an end to the sacrifice of animals for fur on the altar of a bloody and archaic “fashion”. Please continue to sign and share our petition !