The level of risk of avian flu was raised on Thursday 10 November from “moderate” at “raised” throughout the metropolitan territory, according to a decree published in the Official Journal, forcing breeders to confine their poultry. More than 770,000 French poultry have been euthanized since August 1 to stem this virus, AFP learned from the Ministry of Agriculture. In the space of a month, this balance sheet has more than doubled.
The main production regions, Brittany and Pays de la Loire, but also the department of Deux-Sèvres, had already been subject to confinement of poultry since mid-October.
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The epizootic has continued to spread in recent days. A hearth was notably discovered in the Gard last week, in a family barnyard in the town of Fourques, near Arles. A few weeks earlier, another outbreak had been detected in the Dordogne, the first in the Southwest.
After a catastrophic 2021-2022 season, with more than 21 million poultry slaughtered between the end of November and mid-May, the virus started to hit French farms again from the end of July, exceptionally early. Faced with this spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) and with the approach of autumn, when wild bird migration begins and temperatures drop, the authorities had already raised the level at the beginning of October. risk of “negligible” at “moderate” for the whole country.
“No type of breeding is spared”lamented Wednesday Yves-Marie Beaudet, president of the National Committee for the Promotion of Eggs (CNPO). “It’s something that gives chills”he added, warning about the risk that the epizootic represents for egg production. “Breeders are traumatized, some stop producing so as not to relive spring” last, also remarked this week to AFP the president of the Vendée chamber of agriculture, Joël Limouzin.