Clap of unfortunate end for the epic of the bulls sent back from Algeria. Nearly 800 of these animals, back in France following an administrative imbroglio, were slaughtered over the weekend in Aveyron, the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed on Sunday.
Slaughtering operations in a slaughterhouse of the Unicor cooperative in Rodez in Aveyron then rendering in two other departments took place over the weekend: “The operation is over,” the ministry said on Sunday. .
The herd left Sète (Hérault) on September 3 for the port of Algiers, where it never obtained a landing permit from the Algerian authorities and stayed for more than two weeks. According to the French authorities, a “difficulty in interpreting” the health status of three animals caused the blockage.
The bulls had been vaccinated against infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR). However, documents attached to their export certificate bore the mention “IBR positive”, falsely suggesting that they were carriers of the virus, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Preventive culling
After “fruitless discussions”, France ultimately decided to bring the boat back and slaughter these 780 animals under the European protocol related to foot-and-mouth disease. The slaughter was indeed finally decided as a precaution because the animals had been fed at the port of Algiers with hay produced in Algeria, a country not free from foot-and-mouth disease, we explain to the ministry.
Before disembarking the animals in Sète on Thursday, a French veterinary inspection took place on board, which however did not reveal any sick animals. “The results of the analyzes and the veterinary visit did not show any sign of contamination with foot-and-mouth disease”, declared the prefecture of Hérault.
The Aveyron cooperative confirmed in a press release that it had been requisitioned by the prefecture to slaughter “part” of the bulls, and that it “had no other choice but to respond to this injunction”. “UNICOR deplores this situation both from the point of view of animal welfare and respect for the work of French breeders”, denounced the cooperative.
“This waste is incomprehensible, especially in the current context,” said the president of the Lot-et-Garonne chamber of agriculture, Serge Bousquet-Cassagne in La Dépêche du Midi. According to the regional newspaper, the carcasses will not be incinerated in the rendering plant at Passage d’Agen, as initially planned, following protests from the rural coordination of Lot-et-Garonne and the chamber of agriculture. , but could be burnt.