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Vegans arrested in northern France for smashing up butchers shops

Six people were detained in northern France this week over a string of attacks on butcher and fish shops by vegan activists, officials said Wednesday.

Published: 12 September 2018 14:28 CEST

Vegans arrested in northern France for smashing up butchers shops

Illustration photo: Vegans protest against violence towards animals. AFP

Nine businesses in Lille and areas surrounding the city, including a cheese shop and a McDonald's, were targeted between May and August, their windows broken and anti-meat slogans painted on walls.

Often the graffiti included the phrase “Stop Speciesism”, a term sometimes used by animal rights activists to suggest that people who eat meat are behaving immorally against other species.

Five of the six people detained on Monday and Tuesday have been released or will be soon, while one 21-year-old woman was ordered to appear in court on December 14, the Lille prosector's office said.

READ ALSO:

French butchers ask for police protection from violent vegan activists

French butchers ask for police protection from violent vegan activists Photo: AFP

“They preferred to remain silent while being questioned,” a spokesperson for the office said.

A source close to the inquiry said DNA evidence and phone records linked the six activists to the vandalism, as had searches of their homes.

This summer, French butchers wrote to the interior ministry seeking increased protection for their businesses after several were vandalised across the country, often splashed with fake blood.

The CFBCT butchers' confederation, which represents 18,000 businesses, claims there have been dozens of attacks since the beginning of this year.

Tensions flared last week when farmers and shop owners threatened to protest a planned vegan festival in the northern city of Calais with a giant barbecue.

That prompted the mayor to cancel the event, but organisers appealed the decision before a judge who ruled in favour of the festival, which passed off without incident.

As eating and health habits change in traditionally carnivorous France, meat sales have been falling and the animal rights movement is increasingly active, led by campaigners including actress Brigitte Bardot.

But lawmakers in parliament recently dropped a proposal to introduce at least one vegetarian meal for school lunches each week.

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'They're not sausages!' Butchers at Frankfurt trade fair fight back against synthetic meat

Meat plays a big role in German culture. Photo: DPA

Slicing through juicy cuts of pork belly alongside rarer delicacies of ox brain and sheep intestine, young butchers at a Frankfurt trade hall cast a suspicious eye towards the so-called fake meat products on display.

Puzzlingly, for the butchers, the fake meat seems to be popular.

“As a butcher, it just can't be that we have to get into plastic!” said Paolo Desbois, an 18-year-old French butcher, referring disparagingly to the synthetic burgers, sausages and nuggets at the IFFA meat industry convention.

SEE ALSO: Quiz: How well do you know German food culture?

The concept that animals are meat — and plants are not — never used to be challenged. Especially in Germany, a country famous for its selection of Wurst (sausage) products.

But increasingly plant-based protein products are trying to muscle in on the meat market.

Derived from sources like soy, peas or beans, the synthetic products are being manufactured without using animals.

And Desbois, who placed second in a young butchers competition at the convention, feels they undermine “the essence of the profession”.

“It's just not possible to work with synthetic meat,” he said.

Another budding elite butcher from Switzerland, 20-year-old Selina Niederberger, agreed.

A synthetic meat hamburger. Photo: DPA

“As a butcher, I'm for real meat. I think a lot of people would see it the same way,” she declared.

Non “real” meat products have been making headlines lately, backed by investors with an appetite for supplying plant-based burgers and sausages to the trendy diet-conscious masses.

The celebrity-backed vegan burger start-up Beyond Meat, for example, made a sizzling Wall Street debut on May 3 when it more than doubled its share price.

Backed by Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the firm and its competitors aim to turn plant-based foods mainstream and capture a huge potential market.

Ethical concerns

Whether meat substitutes will ever be able to 100 percent replicate the taste, colour, smell and texture of a freshly chopped up and slaughtered animal is debatable.

But some young butchers suspect their growing popularity will inevitably have a transformative effect on their trade.

“It's just shifting with the world and working with it rather than against it,” said 19-year-old British butcher Lennon Callister.

Trade skills are “what sets butchers apart from supermarkets,” he argued, but accepted consumers are starting to look at food differently.

Josja Haagsma from the Netherlands, who won the young butchers competition, agreed that synthetic meats were changing opinions.

“It makes you think about how you can use meat and how you can change it, how you can use more vegetables,” she said.

Photo: DPA

“Maybe the next generation” will be the ones pressed to apply their knives and creativity to the task, Haagsma said.

Vegetables used to be considered a side dish, at best, for carnivore connoisseurs.

But in increasingly health conscious societies, where governments warn about the dangers of consuming too much red meat, plant-based products are widening in appeal.

Alongside ethical concerns over animals bred for the dinner table and green advocates urging the public to eat less meat to save the environment, the scope for more no-meat products is growing.

'They aren't sausages!'

“It's very important that we think about it, that we consume less” but “good quality meat,” said Haagsma.

“You can use organic meat and homegrown cows, and not the cows from the big companies,” she said.

The growing numbers of people turning to plant-based meat alternatives include vegans, who shun all animal products, and flexitarians, who advocate moderate consumption of meat.

One sign of their expanding popularity? Silicon-valley company Impossible has linked up with Burger King to offer a plant-based version of its signature Whopper.

They are sausages. Photo: DPA

Nestle and Unilever are also aiming to cement their presence in the sector.

The move by big conglomerates into the sector has made young butchers note that changes are on the way.

“There'll be less of this mass-produced stuff, which is also really, really bad for the climate,” said 23-year-old German Raphael Buschmann.

However, while recognizing environment-conscious citizens are rethinking their diets, Buschmann predicted a limit to the industry changes.

Vegetarian sausages would not be added to his displays any time soon.

“They aren't sausages,” he said. “That's just the way it is.”

By Yann Schreiber

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