Wealthy French landowners are under attack for ring-fencing their forests to enable even bad shots to kill game during hunting parties laid on to boost their bank accounts and prestige.
The practice is infuriating ecologists and rural residents but also hunting federations, who say it runs counter to tradition.
Opponents say deer, boar and other wild animals are effectively being domesticated in ring-fenced forests. They tend to multiply swiftly and their chances of escape are limited, ensuring that few guests go home empty-handed.
The issue has come to a head with a private members bill introduced by an MP with President Macron’s ruling La République en Marche party who wants to ban the shooting of game on fenced-off land.
François Cormier-Bouligeon, MP for the Sologne area of central France, where there are an estimated 4,000km of fences around private forests, said: “French people with great fortunes have come to buy big properties in the Sologne to organise weekends for the happy few, not for hunting but for carnage. I am in favour of hunting on condition that it is about hunting wild animals with the possibility of escaping.
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“It’s becoming really intolerable.”
Some of the hunting parties are organised as commercial ventures, with people paying fees that range from €300 a day to €4,500 for 24 weekends, with “trophy prices” generally going from about €400 for a deer with four-point antlers to €1,000 for a stag with an eight-point antler.
The millionaires and billionaires putting up the fences say they prevent passers-by from straying on to land during hunting parties, while also helping their business interests.
One said it was important to ensure that his “important guests” did not go home empty handed after a day’s hunting.
Benjamin Tranchant, chairman of a family-owned group that operates casinos, who has been criticised for fencing off his land, told French television this year that he had been caught up in what was “in effect a class war. It’s all about jealousy.”
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He said the “big tallies” achieved on his land infuriated hunters who killed fewer animals. “It makes them mad.”
