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Ethics-Sociology-Philosophy

Dans la jungle des pétitions en ligne, la défense de la cause animale se taille la part du lion

By February 27, 2021March 10th, 2021No Comments

Document type : Article published in Le Monde

Author: Pascal Krémer

Preview: On-line petitions for for the welfare of animals with any number of legs (a thousand, four, two or none) now amass millions of signatures.

There are always petitions for dogs and cats but they are not the only objects of concern. Piglets, raccoons and badgers get their petitions too. However ugly: in the world of online petitions, the animal reigns supreme. How many millions of signatures are validated with just one rebel click? How main campaigns are launched to defend all sorts of creepy-crawlies? Even the  French Assemblée Nationale's very own animal welfare champion, the former veterinarian and Representative (LRM) Loïc Dombreval, has given up, so overwhelmed is he: "I get so many that I don't always read them in detail...". […]

Web petitions are a zero-effort form of commitment.  They cost nothing and waste no time. A single name and email address, a click from your armchair, and they are done. No cost or waste of time. Under the inevitable

"Act now" banner of campaign group websites feels like a releaf after 'Donate now', 'Protest', 'Adopt don't shop', and 'Sponsor an animal'. We sign. Ten million people have already, logically, made this choice in France on the Mesopinions.com website (created in 2006), where 300 petitions are launched every month, mainly by individuals. Change.org boasts 13 million members. "We are living through a crisis in democratic representation," says Sarah Durieux. "Petitions are a traditional way of doing things, which everybody knows about and which are easy to create, allowing us to engage in in civic actions  within a framework that we control." What is more, she says, France is one of the European champions of the petition, alongside Great Britain and Spain. "And with Covid-19, we have seen an explosion: a 64% rise in signatures from March to August 2020." Is it the ban on demonstrations? A lockdown hobby? Most of all, it is the search for  meaning and for community.

By what evolutionary quirk did animals emerge as  kings of the jungle? Mr Dombreval knows the answer: "The French have the impression that politicians do not listen to them enough on this issue." And he points to  the discrepancy between the 920,000 supporters of the citizens'  referendum on animal welfare and the mere 145 parliamentarians (out of 925) who support it. "But I am convinced that, within a few years, bullfighting and blood sports will be abolished," he said. "The French don't want them anymore. The topic of animal wellbeing is now discussed around the supper table." This is thanks, he says, to two concurrent phenomena: "the widespread distribution of shocking images filmed by associations such as L214, and the confirmation by scientists that animals have the ability to feel, of their  intelligence."

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