France Defies Eu to Continue Force-feeding Birds for Foie Gras

The French agriculture ministry has infuriated animal welfare organisations by defending that bastion of Gallic culinary culture, foie gras, rather than bow to the demands of Brussels.

The ministry yesterday gave the country's 6,000 producers an extra five years - until 2010 - to scrap the cramped individual cages, known as épinettes, to which geese and ducks are confined at the end of the fattening process, arguing that a European ruling on the subject was just a recommendation, not a directive.

"It's shameful," said a spokeswoman for the French Animal Rights League.

"France has ratified all these conventions on cruelty to animals, and even put most of them into national law, yet it continues to condone this barbaric practice. It seems foie gras is sacred."

The battle over France's most emblematic delicacy has been raging since 1998, when the Council of Europe, under pressure from countries like the UK, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, where ethics tend to outweigh considerations of mere gastronomy, issued a directive stating that no animal should be "provided with food or liquid in a manner ... which may cause unnecessary suffering or injury".

The council and many other European bodies, up to and including the commission, have since made many more rulings and recommendations, all of which - if they were ever observed - would end the force-feeding of ducks and geese for foie gras.

One states that animals should be fed "a wholesome diet appropriate to their species, in sufficient quantity to maintain them in good health." Another says that ducks and geese, if kept in cages, should be able to "stand normally, turn without difficulty, flap their wings, preen, perform social interactions and feed and drink normally". They can do none of these at present.

But foie gras is big business in France, which accounts for 70% of the 20,000-odd tonnes produced in the world each year and for 85% of global consumption. The industry, centred in the south-west, employs 30,000 people directly and indirectly, and the average French person eats foie gras at least 10 times a year.

To make the nation's favourite entrée, farmers push a 25cm (10in) tube down the neck of each bird and pour in 450g (1lb) of corn two or three times a day for up to a month. By the time they are slaughtered, they are suffering from acute liver disease (the organ swells from five to 10 times its normal size), diarrhoea, panting, walking difficulties, lesions and inflammations.

The foie gras lobby has, of course, fought back fiercely. Recently a committee of eminent scientists from the National Veterinary School and the State Agricultural Research Institute produced an 80-page report claiming the birds cannot be being cruelly treated because they are neither ill, over-stressed or even over-fed.

One team found that once force-feeding is stopped, the birds' livers return to normal within a month and their organs shows no lasting damage. A second denied the birds' diet was excessive, citing cases of farmyard geese capable of voluntarily eating up to 600g of corn at a single sitting, while a third measured their stress levels and found they were far more frightened by any passing stranger than by the farmer who came to feed them.

But pressure is mounting inexorably on France if not to halt the production of foie gras outright - which even the most committed animal rights activist recognises is not very likely soon - then at least to improve the conditions in which the birds are housed and fed.

"We will implement the recommendation on individual cages, but we need more time and we're glad the government has recognised that," said Marie-Pierre Pé of the industry association Cifog. "Bigger cages will make it harder to grab the birds.

"Feeding them will take 20-30% longer. That will cost us money." The agriculture ministry declined all comment on its decision.