French butchers say they’ve had enough. Not only it’s media coverage of the "vegan way of life," now they say they are under assault.
After a series of small but unprecedented incidents, the
butchers federation says its members need protection from militants who have broken windows, thrown fake blood and sprayed graffiti on their shops. In a letter to the French interior ministry, the butchers wrote that "physical, verbal, and moral violence" was "neither more nor less than a form of terrorism."
The letter may be a touch hyperbolic — French vegan organisations are quick to defend their movement as nonviolent — but it has struck a chord with many French who dislike being told what they should eat. Food is sacred in France, a country proud of its over 300 cheeses and its cuts of beef so refined that it is impossible to order a steak at the butcher’s counter without being offered a choice of at least 10 cuts.
"The enemies of a meat-based diet want to consign humanity to grains," a columnist wrote on Tuesday in the news magazine ‘Le Point’.
Butchers in the country have been targeted recently with fake blood by anti-meat or animal-rights groups. In Lille and the surrounding region, vandals shattered widows and left graffiti saying "Stop Speciesism" on a butcher’s shop, a fishmonger, a restaurant and a rotisserie. "Attacks like this are new in France," said Pierre Sans, a veterinary professor at the University of Toulouse who also studies food consumption. "We have seen it against slaughterhouses and laboratories, but towards a business that is selling legal foodstuffs, it’s rather shocking." The Vegan Federation also condemned the attacks. "We have a very clear position: We are completely against ugly language and violent expressions of opinion," said Constantin Imbs, leader of the federation.
The butchers’ letter comes against a backdrop of a gradual fall in meat consumption in France driven by health concerns, higher prices and a sense of the cost of meat to the environment.
