Hygiene and Animal Welfare: a TV programme confirms the appalling situation in French abattoirs

Posted on 21/02/2012

Last Thursday, France 2, one of the main French TV Channels broadcast a report titled: “What’s behind meat in France”.

The report, partly shot with OABA’s participation, and prepared with the help of Eurogroup, and our other French member organisations, unveiled a disastrous situation. It made clear that hygiene and animal welfare controls were not satisfactory in most French abattoirs, and that even if the situation has slightly improved over the last four years, 11% of them are still classified in category IV, which means they do not comply with basic legislative rules. The journalists also pointed out the recurrent lack of official veterinarians, especially for ante mortem inspection and at the slaughtering point, the generalisation of slaughter without stunning (in 100% of abattoirs in the Paris region and for sheep) and the impossibility for the consumer to know whether the animals have been stunned or not.