Document type: Answer to o a question, published in th Journal Officiel de la République Française
Authors: question: Mme Béatrice Roullaud Seine-et-Marne (6th district) - Rassemblement National. Answer: Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry
Question: Mme Béatrice Roullaud alerts Mme la ministre de l'agriculture, de la souveraineté alimentaire et de la forêt to the necessary and unavoidable transition of poultry farming away from cages. France must take a firm stance on banning the rearing of egg-laying hens in cages, and stop playing the double game of claiming to be the world's most virtuous poultry farming nation, while continuing to produce eggs in cages. It should be remembered that battery hens never see the light of day, are kept in cages of less than 750 cm2 per animal, are kept on wire mesh floors, have their beaks burned without anaesthetic to prevent injury due to the cramped conditions, some lose their feathers and are trampled to death, and that as a result, the risk of contamination by the Salmonella bacteria is very high for battery eggs. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Commission's scientific body, has rponounced the cage system to be obsolete and inappropriate. Nevertheless, although the European executive committed itself in 2021 to presenting a legislative proposal by the end of 2023 to improve farm animal welfare, including a ban on cages by 2027, the revisions to European legislation presented in October 2023 contained no proposals on livestock farming, apart from those relating to animal transport, in defiance of the expectations of a majority of Europeans. Against this backdrop, it is most regrettable to learn that on December 4, 2023, the French Conseil d'État rejected the joint petition lodged by nine animal protection organizations for the partial revocation of the decree of December 15, 2021 concerning the reorganization of cage rearing buildings for laying hens, thereby ignoring the substantiated opinion of the public rapporteur, who explained on November 10 that this decree, by allowing reinvestment in cage buildings for laying hens, contravened the 2018 Egalim law, which aims, precisely, "to put an end to cage rearing while giving farmers time to adapt to these changes". She therefore asks what measures the Government intends to implement to respect its commitments and establish, in collaboration with the poultry industry, the appropriate supportive levers to definitively move away from the cage system. Now that Germany has committed to this transition by 2025, she asks whether the French Government is prepared to set a course for poultry farming that respects animal welfare, in line with the will of the French people.
Answer: The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) "End the Cage Age" calls on the European Commission to bring forward legislation banning the use of: - cages for laying hens, rabbits, pullets, broiler breeders, layer breeders, quail, ducks and geese; - farrowing crates and stalls for sows; - and individual stalls for calves. In its response to the European Citizens' Initiative, the European Commission undertook to present a legislative proposal to phase out and eventually ban the use of cage systems for all the animals mentioned in the initiative. France supports the approach proposed by the European Commission to determine how the phasing out of cages is to be achieved, based on scientific expert opinions and an impact assessment. Pending the appearance of the draft European regulations revising the existing legislation, France has begun to address the issue. Improving animal welfare and combating animal abuse are government priorities. There is a strong and growing societal expectation on the part of consumers and citizens regarding animal welfare issues, and this must be met. A number of principles underpin the government's action. First, one challenge is to prevent any distortion of competition. To this end, we are focusing on two levers: supporting the European harmonization of legislation, and ensuring that stricter animal welfare requirements within the European Union are accompanied by equivalent rules for animals whose products are imported. Second, transition has costs. These additional costs must be shared across all those involved in the livestock industry, including distributors and consumers. Last, the government wishes to provide sufficient visibility for operators, particularly for younger generations, so that they can plan ahead and invest. With this in mind, the government is supporting a number of research projects, some of which concern the ending of cage use. These include:
- the project led by the French poultry farming technical institute (ITAVI) to develop group housing for fattening rabbits, funded by the ministerial announcement of public support for the rabbit farming sector of 500,000 euros per year, issued to welfare associations and professionals in September 2023. By June 2023, "cage-free" rabbit farming was estimated to be 10-12%; - the CAREFUL project, which aims to create a cage-free fatteing industry for palmipeds. Progress has already been made in some sectors; in the laying hen sector, for example, the number of hens kept in cages has been steadily falling since 2018. As early as October 2019, the Comité national pour la promotion de l'œuf (CNPO) had announced that it was ahead of schedule in meeting its commitment of sourcing 50% of its hens from farms that did not use intensive cage production. Currently, poultry farms are constantly adapting, and less than 33% of laying hens in France were said to be raised in cages by 2022, i.e. almost 2/3 of hens raised in non-caged systems, compared with a figure of 58% in Europe for 2021. France is therefore ahead of its European partners, and well on the way to ending the use of cages for laying hens.
