Very early retirement. The famous Moulin Rouge cabaret, pressed by animal rights associations to stop using snakes of protected species in a number, announced to AFP the end of it on Tuesday. On Friday, in an article from Parisianshe had indicated that “the presentation of the animals on stage will be stopped from 2024”.
But in a brief press release dated Tuesday, the management of the famous room in the Pigalle district “announces the definitive cessation of the number with the snakes from this day, Tuesday May 9, 2023, and thus anticipates its commitment”. Relaunched by AFP, the management did not want to provide details.
Animal defense associations have won
This decision comes as, this Wednesday, a new demonstration was planned by Paris Animals Zoopolis (PAZ) in front of the cabaret. This animal protection association intended to denounce a “business on the backs of animals” and planned “to file a complaint for animal abuse”. “This is a historic step forward, the Moulin Rouge is a well-known cabaret of Parisian evenings”, reacted to AFP Amandine Sanvisens, the co-founder of PAZ, for whom this announcement “goes in the right direction of the decline of the animal captivity in France”. “We are not going to congratulate the establishment for simply complying with the law after having flouted it for seventeen months”, for his part commented Christophe Marie, spokesperson for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, with the AFP, ensuring that the foundation “alert the Ministry of Ecology more than a year ago”.
In this daily cabaret show, a dancer plunged into a transparent pool where she manipulated large pythons. However, the two species used were “protected species”, which is more “terrestrial” and not aquatic, had deplored the Paris City Hall at the beginning of March, itself pressed by PAZ on this subject, asking the establishment to “ no longer use wild animals” in his shows. In response, the Moulin Rouge had promised to stop this number after “reasonable notice” for “the artists and service providers involved”. But, since then, “no timetable has been communicated”, argued PAZ in press releases issued on Friday and Tuesday.
The establishment had claimed to have announced this decision before that to the two co-rapporteur deputies of the law enforcement mission of November 30, 2021 against animal abuse. The latter, which reinforces the supervision of shows featuring wild animals, concerns discos and television sets, but not cabarets.