For or against Sunday without hunting? In recent years, the issue has come up several times in the public debate, often sadly revived by the accidental death of a hiker by a hunter’s shot. Several 2022 presidential candidates also proposed banning hunting on Sundays, Yannick Jadot, the EELV candidate, even pushing for all weekends and school holidays.
The subject is once again at the top of the agenda at the start of 2023. On January 9, the government must therefore make several announcements concerning the security of hunting.
A growing sense of insecurity?
Without delay, Ifop published on Monday a survey carried out at the request of seven nature protection associations and in which 78% of French people say they are in favor of Sunday becoming a day without hunting.
Another figure from the study put forward by NGOs: 70% of French people say they do not feel safe when they walk in nature during the hunting season, including 32% “not at all”. “Compared to only 54% in 2009, and 61% in 2016, recalls the Bird Protection League (LPO)), in a press release. The feeling of insecurity in relation to hunting is clearly progressing. In detail, women (75%) feel more insecure than men (63%). And then, “far from the clichés, it is the inhabitants of the most worried countryside”, continues the LPO. 74% of respondents living in rural municipalities have this feeling of insecurity when they walk in nature during hunting season against 67% of respondents living in the Paris area.
A proposal rejected by the government?
This survey published on Monday was commissioned from Ifop following a letter sent by around fifteen environmental associations to Emmanuel Macron on November 21. And remained unanswered. These NGOs then demanded two days without hunting per week, including Sunday. Their demands focus on this Sunday truce now, but with little chance of being heard?
This Tuesday, the LPO is already communicating on “the hour of the great renunciation”, saying that it knows that this proposal for a Sunday without hunting would not be retained by the government. “The points of the plan are still under negotiation”, we answer to the cabinet of Berangere CouillardSecretary of State for Ecology.