French butchers call for protection from vegan activists
June 27, 2018
French butchers petitioned the government this week, seeking police protection from what they claim is violence and intimidation by vegan extremists. The CFBCT union, which represents some 18,000 butchers across France, wrote that vegans want to "impose their lifestyle on the immense majority of people."
"We count on your services and on the support of the entire government so that the physical, verbal and moral violence stops as soon as possible," union chief Jean-François Guihard wrote.
Several butcher shops around the country have been vandalized in recent months, often with red graffiti, fake blood or broken windows.
French butchers have complained that increased media attention to a plant-based diet is partly to blame for the problem.
Vegan cheesemaker sentenced
Earlier this year, a vegan cheesemaker was given a suspended jail sentence of seven months for supporting terrorism when she said on Facebook that she would not mourn the shooting death of a man killed in a terror attack in the town of Trebes, comparing being a butcher to being a murderer.
France has been digging in deep against a change in dietary customs, with meat producers trying to ban the use of terms like "sausage" or "steak" on vegetarian products. A parliamentary proposal to introduce a vegetarian day into school lunches was also quickly quashed.
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