French butchers are ‘worried about media overexposure of the vegan way of life’, according to reports.
A letter from the French Federation of Butchers and Caterers to Interior Minister, Gérard Collomb, said the vegan minority wants to ‘impose its will’ on the population.
The Federation’s President Jean-François Guihard wrote the letter as a response to what he described as ‘vegan attacks’ on butcher shops.
‘Attack’
According to the butchers, they have been coming under an increasing number of ‘physical, verbal and moral’ attacks from animal rights activists – mainly fake blood being sprayed on shops.
Jean-François Guihard asked Collomb to step in, writing: “We are counting on your services and on the support of the entire Government to stop as swiftly possible.”
He added that France’s butchers are ‘shocked [by the vegan minority which] wishes to impose its way of life, not to mention its ideology, on the vast majority’.
Kent
The letter in France follows an incident in the UK, when a butcher’s in Ashford, Kent, was graffittied with the words: “Stop Killing Animals. Go vegan.”
This prompted pro-bloodsport group The Countryside Alliance to claim that attacks were on the increase, with meat industry members ‘living in fear’.
Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, Tim Bonner, told The Telegraph: “There’s been an escalation of attacks on butchers, markets, and even abattoirs and it’s an extension of animal rights campaigns we have seen around other areas, using the same tactics including online abuse.”
Isolated incident
However, Roger Kelsey – Chief Executive at National Federation of Meat and Food Traders – debunked Bonner’s claims during a segment on LBC radio last month.
Kelsey told LBC host Shelagh Fogarty: “No, this [kind of problem] tends to be isolated. There was a spate of it 20 years ago, when animal liberationists were particularly active, but I think they learnt it wasn’t doing much for the cause.
“They [animal rights activists] take a much more measured approach now, and so this kind of hostility that has been witnessed down in Kent is very unusual.”
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