In this presidential election year, the Congress of the National Federation of Hunters will have a special flavor. This Tuesday, several candidates will be interviewed, first with a presentation of their program on hunting, followed by questions. If Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will be represented, Jean Lassalle, Valérie Pécresse, Eric Zemmour and Fabien Roussel will be present.
Several absences are however to be noted, in particular those of the ecologist Yannick Jadot, and the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “Mr. Mélenchon and Mr. Jadot, we didn’t even invite them. And they have such a dogmatic position against the chase that there’s no point in giving them yet another audition and we have nothing to say. So, from that moment on, we didn’t want to invite them. On the other hand, Ms. Hidalgo, whom we had invited, did not answer us and there was simply a socialist senator who came forward to say that he was coming. It’s not on the program, but we’ll see. In any case on the left, Mr. Fabien Roussel is very present”.
Hunters plead for a sharing of the forest
Yannick Jadot, however, is the bearer of a radical proposal: proposing to ban hunting on weekends and during school holidays, an idea taken up by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “It’s completely unacceptable. completely unacceptable. This man has only that to carry his ideology both anti-hunting and then his ideology against rurality and against the people who live in this rurality.“.
During the 2020-2021 season, 80 hunting accidents were identified by the French Office for Biodiversity, including 7 fatalities. If hunters are the first victims, Yves Buttel claims to understand the fear of walkers: “But the main thing is to be all smart enough and to tell ourselves that we can share nature. In the Somme, for example, in the forest of Crécy which is a national forest, we no longer hunt on Sundays. And _we hunt a total of 10 to 15 days a year_. So you understand that all the rest of the time people can walk around. They can also walk on hunting days. Just follow the signs. But when sometimes we put signs hunting in progress, etc., that you see people arrive anyway in the hunting line and we say to them “but what are you doing here?” and that we are answered “The forest belongs to everyone”… It is true that it belongs to everyone, but that we can share it from time to time in 10 days or 12 days in the year . That doesn’t seem like a lot to me.”.
“We are ready to work with everyone”
Another proposal from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in particular: prohibit certain types of hunting which he considers cruel. It is aimed in particular at hunting with hounds, the landing of foxes or badgers. Hunting methods deemed cruel, but a false trial according to Yves Buttel: “I believe that _everything is done so that we are pitted against each other_. We are ready to discuss. We are ready to work with everyone. We’re trying to do a job on the pitch which, in my mind, is great. The proof, this weekend, we picked up tens of tons of garbage in our department”.
As for strengthen controls on huntersYves Buttel recalls that they have already been recently: “The law that we voted with the government of Mr. Macron obliges us to do every 10 years, a definitive rehearsal on safety and currently, we are therefore passing thousands of hunters. It lasts a session that lasts three and a half hours, which is very interesting and and I think it’s good for hunters who have had their license for 20, 30, 40 years, it’s compulsory. And I wish that all the hunters come otherwise in a few years, they will no longer have the right to carry a permit. And I call on all hunters to come and do it“.