French hunter ‘sorry’ after killing Franco-British man he mistook for boar

A French hunter told a court Thursday that he was sorry and "marked for life" after killing a man he mistook for a wild boar, an accident that has sparked calls for tighter restrictions on shooting in rural areas.

Published: 17 November 2022 15:33 CET

French hunter 'sorry' after killing Franco-British man he mistook for boar

Portraits and candles are displayed during a march to pay tribute to Morgan Keane, who was killed by two hunters, in Cajarc, southwestern France. (Photo by Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP)

The death of Morgan Keane, a Franco-British man aged 25, caused outrage in 2020 when he was shot while cutting wood near his house in the village of Calvignac in southwest France.

The man who fired the fatal shot and the 51-year-old organiser of the hunt went on trial on Thursday in the nearby town of Cahors, charged with involuntary manslaughter.

If convicted, they face up to three years in prison and a fine of €75,000.

“There isn’t a day I don’t think about it, it’s marked me for life. I’m sorry,” the shooter told the court, admitting that he had not “identified the target”.

The case has revived tensions between anti-hunting activists and defenders of a rural hobby and practice that is seen as necessary by farmers to keep down deer and boar populations in particular.

During the busy times of the hunting season, large parts of the French countryside reverberate with the sound of gunshot, leading many walkers to avoid forested areas for their own safety.

“A lot of people support us,” said Audrey Tindiliere, a member of a collective campaigning for restrictions which was set up after Keane’s death.

“Eighty percent of people are in favour of strengthening the regulation of hunting in order to improve the sharing of the countryside with hunters,” she told AFP before the trial.

State prosecutors called for the shooter to be given a two-year jail term, with 18 months suspended, underscoring “the seriousness of the shortcomings that led to the death of Morgan Keane”.

A verdict is expected on January 12.

Frequent accidents

Hunters form a powerful political lobby in France through the National Federation of Hunters (FNC).

The head of the FNC, Willy Schraen, called for an “exemplary verdict” in the Keane case, an acknowledgement of the strong public feelings around the death.

Keane, whose father was British and mother French, was inside the boundary of his property.

“We ban hunters who do not respect the most basic rules. It mustn’t happen again. It’s unacceptable that this mistake led to the death of a man,” he said.

“If you don’t know what you’re shooting at, you don’t shoot.”

The number of hunting accidents has fallen over the last 20 years, according to the government’s Office for Biodiversity.

There were 90 accidents during the 2021/22 season, eight of which were fatal, including two people who were not hunters, the figures show.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.