French butchers call radical vegans 'terrorists'

World
Europe

Butchers in France are calling on the government to protect the profession from possible personal attacks from vegans. Their concerns come amid several reported incidents of violence on butchers by radical vegan groups.

An activist of the association L214 holds a placard reading "It's Halloween every day for animals" as he demonstrates in the streets of Tours simulating animal slaughter on the evening of Halloween, October 31, 2017. /VCG Photo

In an open letter to French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb last week, Jean-François Guihard, representative of the 18,000-member French Confederation of Butchery and Charcuterie (CFBCT), labelled what vegans have practiced as a form of “terrorism.”

Fifteen butcher shops had been splashed with fake blood before the letter was written.

"It's terror that these people are seeking to sow, in their aim of making a whole section of French culture disappear," he wrote.

Two more butcher shops, in Lyon and Angier, have been vandalized since the letter was made public, according to media reports.

What are butchers afraid of?

Supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) lie in a heap on the pavement next to the Center Pompidou modern art museum, to raise awareness on World Vegan Day, in Paris, November 1, 2017. /VCG Photo‍

Though vegetarians and vegans make up only a small proportion in the French population, their measures have caused a commotion in France.

A 2016 survey shows that only three percent of the population in France consider themselves as vegetarians and vegans.

When labeling those vegans as “terrorists,” butchers hold the rationale that what have been done to their shops could one day happen to themselves.

Butchers’ shops were stoned or defaced with anti-meat stickers and graffiti, according to the confederation.

“There is justice in it,” a French vegan activist is said to have posted on her Facebook account in late March after a butcher was killed by an Islamist militant on March 23.

The woman vegan activist has been given a suspended prison sentence for her post.

One’s own lifestyle, morality for others?

Guihard says vegans are trying to impose their own lifestyle on others, the majority of the population. Thus, he described them as “authoritarian.”

The French vegan organization responded quickly to justify themselves, explaining that their movement is nonviolent.

As individuals, people have the right to make choices. A person may either be a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian. One can also choose to become a vegan, who follows a stricter form of vegetarianism.

(Cover: Butchers unload sides of beef at the 2018 Paris International Agricultural Show as farmers and their animals prepare for the opening of the show in Paris, February 23, 2018. /VCG Photo)