“Obviously, we do not hunt protected species, and we stop hunting with hounds and all cruel hunts. “And then no hunting at all during weekends and school holidays … Hunters know what to expect if Yannick Jadot reaches the Elysee Palace. End of October
, on BFMTV, while two dramatic accidents caused by hunters occurred in three days, the candidate EELV opened the debate on hunting in this 2022 presidential election.
Louis Schweitzer, president of the Animal Law, Ethics and Science Foundation (LFDA), will tell you that this position is not so surprising on the part of an environmental candidate. “What is interesting is how the other candidates will react,” he slips.
Support the hunters, a good political calculation?
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who already proposed a ban on Sunday hunting in the 2017 presidential election, is still in the same position. As well as, unsurprisingly, Hélène Thouy, who could be the first candidate of the Animalist Party in a presidential election if she obtains the 500 sponsorships. “We support the end of the hunt,” she said to 20 minutes. Conversely, Michel Barnier, Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and Arnaud Montebourg are
publicly pronounced against limitations.
A good political calculation? With a million French people with a hunting license, hunters are traditionally a pampering electorate for candidates. In any case not to be rushed. But the balance of power is changing, believes Louis Schweitzer,
which refers to an Ifop poll published in September. The fact that a candidate displays his support for hunters would have no impact on the French vote, say 50% of respondents. But 45% also assure that such a display would not encourage them to vote for him, against only 5% saying the opposite.
The animal cause “becomes a criterion of vote”
So much for the hunt. More generally, again according to this survey, 84% of French people consider the protection of animals to be an important cause. Of these, 40% even say it is very important, when they were only 32% and 38% ahead of the 2012 and 2017 presidential elections. Not so surprising for Daniel Boy, research director at Cevipof, the political research center of Science Po. “Values change over time, in France as elsewhere, and this has been very accentuated in recent years on the animal cause,” he notes. There has long been a contradiction between sensitivity to pets and to wildlife and farm animals. She is jumping. At least, a growing proportion of French people seek to experience it differently. “
Daniel Boy sees in this the joint effect of the work of animal protection associations, such as L214, to bring the subject into the public debate, “but also the progress of science in the understanding of animal behavior,” he adds. Their ability to suffer, to have emotions, to cooperate with each other. Of course, the animal cause is not yet among the most debated issues of a presidential campaign. “But it becomes a criterion for voting, that’s what changes”, observes Louis Schweitzer.
The same Ifop poll tends to show it, and not just on hunting. 47% of voters could vote according to the proposals of a candidate on animal welfare (15% most certainly), against 39% in March 2017 and 29% in December 2011. The president of LFDA also recalls the 2.2% score of the Animalist Party in the 2019 European elections (490,000 ballots). “Far from being ridiculous, confirms Daniel Boy. One would have thought that these voices would be taken from the ecological electorate. It’s more complex. The green vote is a vote of large cities, very urban. However, in the Europeans, the Animalist Party scored very well
in eastern France, the deindustrialised part more particularly, and can be explained in part as a protest vote *. “
2% of voting intentions for the Animalist Party candidate
The Animal Party could do even better in April. In a November Ifop poll for this political formation, Hélène Thouy was credited with 2% of voting intentions. An electoral potential that could prove to be even greater when only 18% of voters have already heard of his candidacy. Anyway, “even at 2%, this confirms a little more that the animal cause is a subject which now weighs in electoral terms, especially in a context where every vote counts, every tenth of points gained or lost can have an impact. on a presence in the second round or an electoral reimbursement ”, slips Hélène Thouy.
What pushes all the candidates to position themselves on the animal cause, including on the divisive aspects of hunting and intensive breeding? This is the first objective that the Animalist Party is aiming for by embarking on the race for 500 sponsorships. “He is not there to win, but to popularize a theme, take advantage of this megaphone that is the presidential election,” says Daniel Boy. “The idea is also to include animal welfare on the political agenda for the next five years”, confirms Hélène Thouy.
Will it still be necessary that the campaign promises are kept by the future tenant of the Elysee? On this point, Hélène Thouy draws up a more than mixed assessment of the outgoing president. “There have been good advances to be made, particularly in the animal abuse law [adoptée au Sénat le 18 novembre], she begins. But we must not be fooled. It intervenes six months before the election to give guarantees to the protectors of animals and try to make them forget the pro-hunting policy of Emmanuel Macron, or his broken promises to improve the lot of farm animals. In the end, this five-year term has done very little to advance the animal question where it involves confronting powerful lobbies. “
“Debate concrete measures”
Hélène Thouy hopes that this time around, we will not be left with big announcements of principle on the necessary protection of animals, “but that we will finally talk about concrete measures, action plans. The NGOs will also keep an eye on the grain. In particular through the Animal Politique collective , which brought together 26 of them in the last presidential election, including the LFDA. “But that’s another sign that things are changing,” observes Louis Schweitzer. In 2017, we wrote a manifesto around the 30 proposals we sent to each candidate. This time, it may well be that we go directly to a comment on the “animal welfare” component of the programs, pointing to the most and the less ambitious. “
Louis Schweitzer already lists at least three “easy to implement” ideas that he would like to see the candidates carry: “create a ministry for animal welfare, or at least appoint someone at a high level of government in charge of In this regard, make mandatory labeling on breeding conditions, and prohibit acts of cruelty on free-living animals. It’s already the case, for 170 years [loi Grammont de 1850], for animals in the care of humans. But not for wildlife. “