Document type: Article published in Ouest France
Author: Guillaume Le Du
Preview: Jacques Sénécal in Cahagnes (Calvados) is one of the first abattoir owners in France to make use of video surveillance on his poultry slaughter line. He is doing it to prove that he is not mistreating the animals he slaughters.
In Cahagnes, in the distinctive landscape of the Calvados bocage, Jacques Sénécal's abattoir slaughters 4,000 birds a week for the region's traditional butchers. The family business, with just sixteen employees, may be considered a small business in this sector, but this does not prevent it from being at the cutting edge of innovation. Three years ago, the Sénécal brothers introduced a digital label system that allowed animals to be traced from birth to their arrival on the dinner table. QR codes have made it possible for them to "block the purchase of poultry unfit for consumption at the shop till".
Help from local government veterinary services
They "did it again" on 26 July, by having three surveillance cameras installed at their abattoir. "Our farmers (about ten small farms from the Département) take good care of their animals, and we wanted to show them that their poultry are slaughtered without suffering," explains Jacques Sénécal. We put them to sleep with electronarcosis (stunning by using an electric current) before they are bled.
These two stages are filmed and can be viewed live on the owner's computer. A third camera has also been installed at the point where the animals are attached to the shackle line. "The images are sent to the farmers and, because we can trace the batches, they can see how their poultry have been slaughtered." The local authority's veterinary services (DDPP), who were involved in setting up the system, "have direct access to the images which don't show our employees' faces".
A further benefit has been that his staff have been able to develop their awareness of animal welfare. "We carried out training to make sure that the way they were hung was not too brutal, making sure that no birds were bled without having been put to sleep, even if it meant having to send a bird back to be stunned again where they were unsure." Jacques Sénécal even had a meeting with the L214 animal rights group. The group, which specialises in the production of shocking videos, is calling for "these images to be made public".
It won't happen right away. "The next stage would be to make these images available to NGOs and it would only be in a third phase that they would be released to consumers," says Fabrice Zehra, the entrepreneur and animal rights campaigner who set up the video system in the Sénécal abattoir, in an interview with Brut media. "It's crazy that, in 2021, video surveillance is not common practice in French abattoirs ...".
Funding for the installation of forty-six video surveillance systems
Instead, after the Falorni Bill, which would have made video surveillance compulsory in French abattoirs, had been voted down in 2017, permission was given in the 2018 French Food Law (Article 71) for a voluntary video surveillance pilot to be conducted over two years. Just five abattoirs have taken part in the scheme, which began in February 2020.
"There are other abattoirs that have installed it but who didn't want to be part of the experiment because they didn't want to have to report to the public authorities. But we need a regulatory framework to protect employees. The problem often lies with unsuitable restraint equipment and excessive work rates," says Agathe Gignoux, Head of Public Affairs at CIWF France, an animal welfare NGO. "Video surveillance is already compulsory in the United Kingdom, Israel, the Netherlands and half of the United States. We are lagging behind."
But the good news is that, as part of France's recovery plan, 115 million euros have been allocated to the modernisation of abattoirs. FranceAgriMer has selected 132 projects, 46 of which include video surveillance systems. Retailers are pushing for this type of investment and Carrefour has demanded that cameras be installed in its partner abattoirs. There are more than 900 abattoirs, including 247 large-animal abattoirs processing sheep, goats, pigs and cattle.
