Why budget of National Federation of Hunters exploded

The public support from which the FNC benefits greatly increased, doped by the hunting reform adopted during the first five -year term of Emmanuel Macron.

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The percentage of increase in public financial aid allocated to the National Federation of Hunters (FNC), between 2017 and 2021, reaches the huge figure of 42,450 %. The FNC accounts covering the last five years, published in the Official Journal, on August 8, and broadcast by the site lanceuralerte.org , have made the defenders of nature jump, who have long denounced the marked support of Emmanuel Macron to hunters.

Public support assigned to the FNC increased from 27,000 euros, in 2017, to 6.3 million, in 2020, then to 11.46 million euros in 2021. This sum is mainly allocated in the Framework for a collaboration with the French Biodiversity Office for the realization of nature protection projects at the heart of a lively controversy. These actions are not all carried out by the FNC, some are by regional and departmental hunting federations. The National Federation therefore performs a redistribution of financing, “acting only as a mailbox,” says the delegated director of the FNC, Constance Bouquet.

Increase in the number of licensees

has a lesser degree, revenues from hunter contributions have followed a similar trajectory, from around 11.5 million euros per year, between 2017 and 2019, to more than 28 million since 2020. / p>

At the origin of these money entries: the hunting reform started in 2018 and adopted in 2019. One of the main measures concerns the reduction in the cost of the hunting permit, which goes from 400 to 200 euros . According to Constance Bouquet, this “made it possible to increase the number of licensees, which went from 100,000 to 450,000” during the 2019-2020 hunting season.

At the time is also established the ecocontribution, a system intended to finance actions in favor of biodiversity, in partnership with the OFB. For each hunter contribution, the federation will therefore pay 5 euros, and the State, 10. More than 500 projects have been validated and implemented since 2019, for a total envelope of 15 million euros, according to the FNC.

The very existence of the mechanism as well as the vagueness in the use of funds are disputed. The collective one day a hunter filed, in April, a request to the court of accounts as part of the citizen consultation launched by the government body on public supports to the federations of hunters, in order to know their exact assignment. The latter was retained and the question will be the subject of a report in 2023. A legal appeal was finally filed in the spring, without success, by the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), the Association for Protection Wild animals (ASPAS) and the Office for Insects and their environment (opie), which claim the deletion of the ecocontribution.

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/Media reports.