In the land of "coq au vin"
Soul-Searching Over Bird Flu
For the French, a bird is more than a bird.
Yves de la Fouchardiere, a lobbyist for the Loué poultry farmers, is campaigning to keep the region's chickens uncaged despite the bird flu scare.
The rooster has been the national emblem since ancient Gallic times and adorns official seals, church steeples, the garden gate of Élysée Palace, even the uniforms of the national soccer team.
In the early 17th century, King Henry IV declared the right of his subjects to have a chicken in the family pot once a week, and even today, the ritual family lunch on Sunday is defined by a perfectly roasted chicken.
"Poultry is for cuisine what canvas is for painters," wrote Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French 19th-century gastronome. "We are served it boiled, roasted, fried, hot or cold, whole or in parts, with or without sauce, deboned, skinned, stuffed and always with equal success."
So when a wild duck was found dead, infected with the avian flu virus, in a small lake in eastern France last week, it set off a national panic, a potential health and economic calamity and an identity crisis as well. The fears were stoked again on Thursday with reports of a second infected duck in the same area — the department of Ain — and, even more ominously, the possible spread of the virus to turkeys on a nearby farm.
"The fowl is part of our national heritage," said Pierre Rolland, the mayor of Loué, a poultry-producing town southwest of Paris whose identity is defined by the free-range fowl that bear its name. "As mayor, I will defend the good reputation of our chickens, which are known throughout France and Europe. We have to avoid a Hitchcock psychosis."
France is Western Europe's main migratory crossroads for wild birds, as well as the Continent's largest poultry producer and exporter, with farmers breeding and selling 900 million chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other assorted fowl every year. So even a hint of the avian flu virus, which has killed more than 200 million birds worldwide, sends tremors throughout the country.
Underscoring those concerns, French officials cordoned off the suspicious turkey farm and ordered the slaughter of all 11,000 birds on Thursday, even though definitive results from laboratory testing for the virus were not expected before Friday.
If the virus does spread farther, the farms in and around Loué stand to be among the most heavily affected in the country. The landscape of the town is dominated not by a church steeple or a medieval fortress but by an ultramodern granary. A vast chick incubator and a slaughterhouse employ hundreds of area residents.
The municipal coat of arms is a shield framed by two chickens. The restaurant at the town's main hotel, Ricordeau, features only local poultry and eggs, serves meals on custom-made porcelain with images of fowl and makes its own chocolates in the shape of chickens.
The 27 million birds raised and sent to market every year from the area are identified by a gold-colored metal tag stamped with the number of one of the more than 1,000 registered Loué farmers.
The birds are famous throughout France because they are not confined in pens but roam free, feeding on a special combination of corn, wheat, soy, peas, rapeseed and minerals, as well as grass and the nuts and berries from hundreds of thousands of bushes and trees. They are sent to market after 13 weeks, compared with 5 to 6 weeks for industrially produced poultry.
"A good chicken is a free chicken," reads a poster for Farmers of Loué, a marketing and advocacy group. So when a French government decree ordered all of the country's chickens confined to pens even before the first avian flu case was confirmed, the farmers here were outraged.
"For 37 years of my life I have raised birds — white chickens, yellow chickens, chickens with black feet, Barbary ducks, guinea fowl, geese, capons and turkeys," said Christian Chanal, a third-generation poultry farmer who is also mayor of the neighboring village of Chantenay Villedieu. "I know my birds."
Some farmers have used loopholes in the regulations to keep their chickens outdoors, in full view of passers-by and chicken inspectors. (Some birds can remain outdoors if a veterinarian certifies that they are free of disease.) Other farmers have interpreted the regulation to mean that birds can be kept in small gardens.
"Some of our birds," admitted Mayor Rolland, "are a little bit outdoors."
The $7-billion-a-year French poultry industry had been battered even before the appearance of bird flu. An initial, ultimately unfounded, avian flu scare last fall had already reduced chicken sales and consumption. The recent confirmation of the arrival of bird flu cut poultry sales by as much as 30 percent, even before the announcement that turkeys may have been infected, according to the Federation of Trade and Distribution Companies.
The impact of the crisis extends even beyond the poultry industry. Hunters, who were banned last fall from using small live birds as bait for waterfowl, have been given instructions on what to do if they come upon suspect dead birds.
The celebrated bird market in Paris was ordered to remove all live birds. For the first time in its 42-year history, the Salon of Agriculture, France's annual livestock fair, will ban poultry when it opens this week.
Xavier Bertrand, the French health minister, only added to the country's fears when he announced that he had ordered 600 million face masks — apparently in case the virus should develop the capacity to spread from human to human, which so far it has not.
Jean-Roch Gaillet, the director of the veterinary service of the Paris police, has warned that the 60,000 to 80,000 pigeons of Paris are vulnerable to the flu. More than 80 die every day from other causes, he told the newspaper Le Parisien.
Underscoring the seriousness of the threat, President Jacques Chirac pledged on Thursday a "total mobilization of the government and its public institutions" to handle the anticipated crisis. France has already allocated $75 million in aid to poultry farmers and has bought 30 million doses of avian flu vaccine.
In Brussels, the European Union approved on Wednesday poultry vaccination programs against avian flu for France and the Netherlands. Ducks and geese, which cannot be easily confined indoors, in the three most vulnerable areas in France, including the foie gras producing Landes region, will receive vaccinations immediately.
The Loué cooperative wants a program to vaccinate every one of its birds, challenging those who say such a move would be prohibitively expensive and saying it is the only way to keep the chickens free.
Meanwhile, Duc, a French mass-production poultry company, is taking a different tack, touting the fact that its chickens are raised in confinement. The company has begun distributing pictures of its birds in cages.
NYTimes, 23.02.06
For the French, a bird is more than a bird.
Yves de la Fouchardiere, a lobbyist for the Loué poultry farmers, is campaigning to keep the region's chickens uncaged despite the bird flu scare.
The rooster has been the national emblem since ancient Gallic times and adorns official seals, church steeples, the garden gate of Élysée Palace, even the uniforms of the national soccer team.
In the early 17th century, King Henry IV declared the right of his subjects to have a chicken in the family pot once a week, and even today, the ritual family lunch on Sunday is defined by a perfectly roasted chicken.
"Poultry is for cuisine what canvas is for painters," wrote Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French 19th-century gastronome. "We are served it boiled, roasted, fried, hot or cold, whole or in parts, with or without sauce, deboned, skinned, stuffed and always with equal success."
So when a wild duck was found dead, infected with the avian flu virus, in a small lake in eastern France last week, it set off a national panic, a potential health and economic calamity and an identity crisis as well. The fears were stoked again on Thursday with reports of a second infected duck in the same area — the department of Ain — and, even more ominously, the possible spread of the virus to turkeys on a nearby farm.
"The fowl is part of our national heritage," said Pierre Rolland, the mayor of Loué, a poultry-producing town southwest of Paris whose identity is defined by the free-range fowl that bear its name. "As mayor, I will defend the good reputation of our chickens, which are known throughout France and Europe. We have to avoid a Hitchcock psychosis."
France is Western Europe's main migratory crossroads for wild birds, as well as the Continent's largest poultry producer and exporter, with farmers breeding and selling 900 million chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other assorted fowl every year. So even a hint of the avian flu virus, which has killed more than 200 million birds worldwide, sends tremors throughout the country.
Underscoring those concerns, French officials cordoned off the suspicious turkey farm and ordered the slaughter of all 11,000 birds on Thursday, even though definitive results from laboratory testing for the virus were not expected before Friday.
If the virus does spread farther, the farms in and around Loué stand to be among the most heavily affected in the country. The landscape of the town is dominated not by a church steeple or a medieval fortress but by an ultramodern granary. A vast chick incubator and a slaughterhouse employ hundreds of area residents.
The municipal coat of arms is a shield framed by two chickens. The restaurant at the town's main hotel, Ricordeau, features only local poultry and eggs, serves meals on custom-made porcelain with images of fowl and makes its own chocolates in the shape of chickens.
The 27 million birds raised and sent to market every year from the area are identified by a gold-colored metal tag stamped with the number of one of the more than 1,000 registered Loué farmers.
The birds are famous throughout France because they are not confined in pens but roam free, feeding on a special combination of corn, wheat, soy, peas, rapeseed and minerals, as well as grass and the nuts and berries from hundreds of thousands of bushes and trees. They are sent to market after 13 weeks, compared with 5 to 6 weeks for industrially produced poultry.
"A good chicken is a free chicken," reads a poster for Farmers of Loué, a marketing and advocacy group. So when a French government decree ordered all of the country's chickens confined to pens even before the first avian flu case was confirmed, the farmers here were outraged.
"For 37 years of my life I have raised birds — white chickens, yellow chickens, chickens with black feet, Barbary ducks, guinea fowl, geese, capons and turkeys," said Christian Chanal, a third-generation poultry farmer who is also mayor of the neighboring village of Chantenay Villedieu. "I know my birds."
Some farmers have used loopholes in the regulations to keep their chickens outdoors, in full view of passers-by and chicken inspectors. (Some birds can remain outdoors if a veterinarian certifies that they are free of disease.) Other farmers have interpreted the regulation to mean that birds can be kept in small gardens.
"Some of our birds," admitted Mayor Rolland, "are a little bit outdoors."
The $7-billion-a-year French poultry industry had been battered even before the appearance of bird flu. An initial, ultimately unfounded, avian flu scare last fall had already reduced chicken sales and consumption. The recent confirmation of the arrival of bird flu cut poultry sales by as much as 30 percent, even before the announcement that turkeys may have been infected, according to the Federation of Trade and Distribution Companies.
The impact of the crisis extends even beyond the poultry industry. Hunters, who were banned last fall from using small live birds as bait for waterfowl, have been given instructions on what to do if they come upon suspect dead birds.
The celebrated bird market in Paris was ordered to remove all live birds. For the first time in its 42-year history, the Salon of Agriculture, France's annual livestock fair, will ban poultry when it opens this week.
Xavier Bertrand, the French health minister, only added to the country's fears when he announced that he had ordered 600 million face masks — apparently in case the virus should develop the capacity to spread from human to human, which so far it has not.
Jean-Roch Gaillet, the director of the veterinary service of the Paris police, has warned that the 60,000 to 80,000 pigeons of Paris are vulnerable to the flu. More than 80 die every day from other causes, he told the newspaper Le Parisien.
Underscoring the seriousness of the threat, President Jacques Chirac pledged on Thursday a "total mobilization of the government and its public institutions" to handle the anticipated crisis. France has already allocated $75 million in aid to poultry farmers and has bought 30 million doses of avian flu vaccine.
In Brussels, the European Union approved on Wednesday poultry vaccination programs against avian flu for France and the Netherlands. Ducks and geese, which cannot be easily confined indoors, in the three most vulnerable areas in France, including the foie gras producing Landes region, will receive vaccinations immediately.
The Loué cooperative wants a program to vaccinate every one of its birds, challenging those who say such a move would be prohibitively expensive and saying it is the only way to keep the chickens free.
Meanwhile, Duc, a French mass-production poultry company, is taking a different tack, touting the fact that its chickens are raised in confinement. The company has begun distributing pictures of its birds in cages.
NYTimes, 23.02.06
Dans l'Ain, Villepin a mangé du poulet
Le Premier ministre n'a cependant annoncé aucune nouvelle mesure d'aide chiffrée en direction des producteurs de volailles inquiets.
par Alice Géraud (dans la Dombes)
Dominique de Villepin est venu sous haute escorte médiatique mercredi après-midi dans la Dombes (Ain) pour «rassurer» les éleveurs de la filière avicole face à la crise de la grippe aviaire. Et leur assurer «toute la solidarité nationale». Après avoir visité en tenue de sécurité une exploitation où les volailles sont confinées, le Premier ministre s'est fendue d'une dégustation quelques cuisses de poulets sous l'œil des caméras. Il n'a cependant annoncé aucune nouvelle mesure d'aide chiffrée en direction des producteurs de volailles. «Onze millions d'euros ont d'ores et déjà été débloqués (…) et nous serons amenés à prendre des mesures complémentaires à l'issue d'un travail de concertation avec les éleveurs», a-t-il simplement déclaré.
Le Premier ministre n'a cependant annoncé aucune nouvelle mesure d'aide chiffrée en direction des producteurs de volailles inquiets.
par Alice Géraud (dans la Dombes)
Dominique de Villepin est venu sous haute escorte médiatique mercredi après-midi dans la Dombes (Ain) pour «rassurer» les éleveurs de la filière avicole face à la crise de la grippe aviaire. Et leur assurer «toute la solidarité nationale». Après avoir visité en tenue de sécurité une exploitation où les volailles sont confinées, le Premier ministre s'est fendue d'une dégustation quelques cuisses de poulets sous l'œil des caméras. Il n'a cependant annoncé aucune nouvelle mesure d'aide chiffrée en direction des producteurs de volailles. «Onze millions d'euros ont d'ores et déjà été débloqués (…) et nous serons amenés à prendre des mesures complémentaires à l'issue d'un travail de concertation avec les éleveurs», a-t-il simplement déclaré.
liberation, 23.02.06
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