The Documentary Podcast7 Apr 2022

Dying to hunt in France

Just before Christmas, 2021, Joel Vilard was driving his cousin home on a dual carriageway just south of Rennes in Brittany. Suddenly, a bullet flew through the window and hit the pensioner in the neck. He later died in hospital of injuries accidentally inflicted by a hunter firing a rifle from a few hundred metres away. A year earlier Morgan Keane, was shot dead in his garden, while out chopping wood. The hunter says that he mistook the 25 year old man for a wild boar.

Mila Sanchez was so shocked by her friend Morgan’s death that she collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to change the hunting laws. She gave evidence to the French Senate and put the topic on the political agenda. The Green Party is now calling for a ban on hunting on Sundays and Wednesdays. But the Federation National des Chasseurs, which licenses the 1.3 million active hunters across France, is fighting back. It argues hunting is a vital part of rural life and brings the community together. Its members were delighted when President Macron recently halved the cost of annual hunting permits.

Yet public opinion, concerned about safety and animal rights, is hardening against hunting and the battle for la France Profonde is on. On the eve of presidential elections, Lucy Ash looks at a country riven with divisions and asks if new laws are needed to ensure ramblers, families, residents and hunters can share the countryside in harmony.

Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Phoebe Keane Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Anthony, from the Ile de France branch of the Federations of Hunters, in the forest of Rambouillet west of Paris. Credit: Amélie Le Meur)

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(2000)

Fred Hammond

Fred Hammond is one of the biggest names in Gospel music, with 15 Grammy awards, and a career that spans over 40 years, from playing bass in The Winans to more recently his Tiny Desk Concert. His song...

4 Sep 26min

A23a: Biography of an iceberg

Forty years ago, an iceberg broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf. But this was no ordinary iceberg. A colossal chunk of ice which covered an area twice the size of London, it was as deep as the Emp...

3 Sep 28min

Fighting the silent killer

Presenter Becky Green lost one of her twins to sepsis in 2018. It is a condition that, according to the World Health Organization, is implicated in one in five deaths worldwide - more than bowel, pros...

2 Sep 26min

Big surveillance, Flock and ICE

AI cameras, drones, licence plate readers, sound detection, Flock - the United States is monitored through a growing, high-tech, and increasingly interconnected surveillance network. In some cities, l...

1 Sep 26min

Is Turkey's clothing industry unravelling at the seams?

The Made in Turkey label found in so much of our clothing could disappear as the industry faces competition from countries like Egypt. Turkey is battling huge inflation and hundreds of clothing factor...

31 Aug 17min

The price of peace

Colombia is reeling from the False Positive scandal. Incentivised by the government, soldiers abducted and killed over 7,000 innocent civilians, falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters in an att...

30 Aug 49min

Hong Kong's bookstore raids

The spoken languages in Hong Kong and Taiwan differ, with Cantonese being spoken in Hong Kong and Mandarin preferred in Taiwan, but the two territories use traditional Chinese characters for reading a...

29 Aug 26min

We will always love you, Dolly

Flags are at half-mast across the United States following the death of Dolly Parton at the age of 80. Born in poverty in a log cabin in rural Tennessee, she went on to sell more than 100 million recor...

29 Aug 22min