Anyone who goes hunting in France and does so while intoxicated will soon face a fine of up to 1,500 euros. In the event of a repeated violation, that amount will be higher, according to a new law.
The law is part of a package of measures aimed at reducing the number of hunting incidents in France. In addition, training for hunters will be tightened and an app will be launched that will allow hikers to keep track of where and when hunting takes place in the country. Hunters involved in a serious incident will also lose their hunting license.
For a large group of French people, hunting is an important pastime. A French interest group recently calculated that more than a million people are active as hunters in the country. About five million people have a permit.
Although the number of hunting accidents has steadily decreased in France over the past twenty years, President Macron’s government still deemed additional measures necessary. This had to do with the increasingly louder criticism of the hunting tradition.
Criticism on social media
The criticism can be read on Instagram, among other places. In 2020, a 25-year-old man, Morgan Keane, was killed in a hunting accident. He was chopping wood on his own property when he was hit in the chest. The hunter responsible later said he had mistaken the man for a wild boar.
Two of Keane’s friends then drew attention to the regulations surrounding hunting via Instagram. A campaign subsequently collected so many signatures that the French Senate opened an investigation. It showed that 9 percent of hunters involved in an accident had used alcohol or drugs. The research sparked a fierce debate in France about hunting.
At the beginning of this year, the French pollster IFOP noted that almost 80 percent of French people want hunting on Sundays to be banned.
- France suspends controversial bird hunting with glue
