Several texts were published on Friday at the “Official Journal”. In 2021, the Council of State had suspended similar decrees, which risked contravening European law.
Le Monde with AFP
The government has again authorized traditional forms of hunting for the field of fields in several departments of the Southwest, despite the risk of contravening European law. Several orders were published Friday October 7 at Official Journal allowing the capture of these birds using “Pantes” (horizontal nets) or “matoles”. 2022-2023, at around 100,000 birds in the Gironde, Les Landes, Lot-et-Garonne and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Questioned Saturday on France Info , the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, “assumes the decision that was made” to reautorize the hunts at the Pante and the Matole “which are extremely limited”, while maintaining the ban on other techniques, such as glu hunt.
“illegal” orders according to the LPO
“The government chooses the recurrence by taking up orders he knows illegal, immediately denounced the League for Bird Protection (LPO) in a press release . And, as usual, he publishes them the day before their application in order to let thousands of birds kill while the Council of State decides on the appeal in summary proceedings that the LPO will immediately deposit to request the suspension of these orders. “
The 2009 European Birds Directive prohibits the massive capture techniques of birds without distinction of species. A derogation is possible “provided you are duly motivated and therefore” that there is no other satisfactory solution “to capture certain birds”.
of the previous ones in 2021
In October 2021, the same type of decreases on traditional hunting with the lark had been suspended by the judge in the Council of State, emergency by the defenders of nature. After a first cancellation in August 2021 of several hunting authorizations (Grives, Black Hongs, Banters, Golden Runiers, Alouettes des Champs with nets or cages), the judge had estimated that the government had taken these new orders on the same basis, risking contravening European law, and that there was “serious doubt as to their legality”.
But in October 2021, the Council of State had not spoken on the bottom of the file. The Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, had declared at the end of September that he would expect this decision on the merits before again authorizing certain traditional hunts.