Document type : news item from the French Senate
Author: French Senate Press Office
Preview: On Thursday 30 September 2021, the Senate adopted, with amendments, the bill to strengthen the fight against animal abuse, adopted by the French National Assembly using the accelerated procedure.
This legislation aims to combat the mistreatment of domestic and wild animals, while improving the conditions under which they are kept in four key ways:
- to improve the conditions under which pets and equines are kept;
- to strengthen penalties as a deterrant to pet abuse;
- to end the keeping of wild species for commercial purposes;
- to end the fur-farming of American mink.
First reading in the French Senate (30 September 2021)
On Thursday 30 September 2021, the Senate adopted, with amendments, the bill to strengthen the fight against animal abuse, adopted by the French National Assembly using the accelerated procedure.
In the course of this review, the Senate adopted amendments which, among other outcomes, served to:
- set a time limit of one year for individual animal keepers to obtain the new knowledge certificate (amd. 23 - art.1);
- specify that possession a certificate of commitment and knowledge will be obligatory for the first acquisition of a pet animal species once the law has been promulgated (amd. 190 - art.1);
- provide a validated proof of residence for domestic carnivores, so that the keeper registered in the national database cannot be challenged (amd. 84 corr. 2 - addit. art. after art. 1) ;
- reintroduce, with equivalence in standards, animal welfare training for pound managers (amd. 90 corr. 2 - art. 3) ;
- Include information on the penalties for animal abuse in service-provision contracts for animal shelters(amds 10 and 62 - art. 3);
- allow pounds to be managed in partnership with other public intercommunal cooperative bodies (amds 40 corr. 3, 137 corr. 3, and 192 - art. 3) ;
- clarify the certification requirement for groups working without a shelter (amd. 196 - art. 3a);
- specify the framework in which public intercommunal cooperative bodies may be required to intervene in the capture, sterilisation and identification of stray cats (amd. 197 - art.4);
- strengthen work to combat the introduction of dogs, particularly from Eastern Europe, that do not comply with health and identification rules (amd. 203 - art. 4.6 B);
- regulate the publication of online offers for the sale of pets (amd. 205 corr. 2 - art. 4.6) ;
specify the content relating to animal ethics awareness for moral and civic education (amd. 209 - art. 7.3);
- protect minors from seeing animal pornographic content (amd. 120 corr. 3 - add. art. following art. 11) ;
- register the perpetrators of sexual offences against animals on the French legal sexual offenders register - FIJAIS (amd. 125 corr. 3 - art. add. following article 11.4) ;
- clarify the distinction between shelters/ sanctuaries and establishments providing medical care to wildlife (amd. 219 corr. - art. 12.2) ;
- prohibit the public performance of training acts in shelters and sanctuaries (amd. 15 - art. 12a) ;
- prohibit the display of animals in discotheques, whether domestic or non-domestic (amd. 74 - art. 13);
- to modify the title of the text, which becomes: "proposal for a law to combat animal abuse and strengthen the bond between animals and humans" (amt 20 rect. - title of the proposal for a law).
