2024-02-03 09:23:19
Nathalie Le Borgne, president of the criminal court of Brest (Finistère), looks at the clock this Friday, February 2. For four hours she has been leading the debates to unravel the threads of a case of animal abuse on two farms belonging to Bernard and Dominique Kerdoncuff. In Finistère, one of France’s main pig-producing departments, the siblings are known for running the second largest pig farm in the region. More than 20,000 animals are born each year on the family’s farms, where around twenty workers are employed. A case “flourishing”, according to the Kerdoncuffs’ lawyer. The public prosecutor specifies that one of the farms at the heart of the trial even posted a gross operating surplus of more than 1 million euros in 2020.
“I take care of my animals out of passion, not to make money. I work with my animals every day, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. I struggle to take ten days off a year. Talking about mistreatment against me is lamentable! », clamor Dominique Kerdoncuff, 58 years old. “We are not questioning your investment, but your breeding methods”, replies the president. The judge lists the accusations: mistreatment of animals by a professional, failure to comply with formal notices to respect measures to ensure the protection of animals, use of an unsuitable method of detention that could cause suffering, lack of proper clothing of a breeding register…
Then Nathalie Le Borgne traces the case, born from a complaint, filed in November 2019, by L214. Photos and videos, released by the animal protection association, showed the inside of two farms where sows, sometimes injured, were herded into cages, unable to turn around. Between November 2019 and April 2021, the departmental population protection directorate (DDPP) carried out several unannounced checks on farms. Officials discovered animals suffering from hernias, wounds, bedsores, necrosis, etc. Some of the animals did not have free access to water, lived on defective slats and in insufficiently lit facilities. Veterinary monitoring of the animals was carried out with chalk on a wall.
The investigations never made it possible to specify which drugs or vaccines had been administered to the animals, nor in what quantities. Analysis of the carcass of a pig sent to a Belgian slaughterhouse revealed abnormal drug residues. On the stand, one of the officials in charge of controls testifies: “The problem in this case is that the company considers the infractions to be normal. »
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