Shotgun Politics

As dusk fell over the seine estuary in northern France on the evening of July 21, the muzzle-flash of hidden guns lit up the gathering night. Burly men in paramilitary garb emerged from foxholes dug into the sand and set upon the gendarmes sent to investigate, driving them away with a hail of blows.

Anarchist insurrection? No, just French country folk defending what they see as their right to hunt migrant birds and waterfowl during the closed season the European Commission insists is necessary to protect their numbers. The hunters recently received unexpected support from Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who wrote to European environment Commissioner Margot Wallström on July 20 complaining that the "constraints" imposed by the Commission are "damaging the image of Europe in a large part of rural France."

Jospin has been harassed by the hunting lobby since early last year, when his government finally got around to transferring a 1979 European directive on the preservation of wild birds into French law. Under threat of heavy fines from the European Court of Justice, then Environment Minister Dominique Voynet set about reducing France's sprawling seven-and-a-half-month open season by two-and-a-half months to comply with the Sept. 1-Jan. 31 period required by Brussels. Voynet's bill appeased hunting militants by allowing certain species to be shot from Aug. 10 if their numbers were healthy. The measure scraped through the National Assembly last June. But in May this year, the Council of State ruled that these exceptions are incompatible with European directives. As August loomed closer, the issue remained unresolved. "Jospin wants the European Commission to decide for him," says Philippe J. Dubois, director of communications at the Bird Protection League. "That way, he can say to the hunters, 'Look, at least I tried for you.'"

Jospin isn't known as a hunting enthusiast. But ever since the revolution slaughtering birds and small animals has been considered a natural right in France, where hunters even have their own political party, CPNT. And Jospin is mindful that CPNT racked up 7% of the vote in the 1999 European elections — putting the hunters level with his Communist coalition partners. As he prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections next spring, every vote counts. Senior Socialist Party officials believe at least 50 of their 244 parliamentary seats could be lost if the hunting lobby turns against them.

Yet if Jospin expected his letter to elicit a salvo of approval from the hunters, it didn't work out that way. "This smacks of electioneering," says Henri Sabarot, president of the cpnt group on the Aquitaine regional council. "The Prime Minister is under pressure from Socialist deputies who can see the CPNT vote rising in their constituencies." It hasn't won him any friends among his Green Party allies either. Environment Minister Yves Cochet — who took over from Voynet last month — called the Prime Minister's initiative "pointless."

To the Socialists, that's not playing fair. "The pro-hunting movement has mainly appeared in constituencies where the Socialists have slim majorities," says a source close to the Prime Minister. "Socialist deputies are in danger from militant hunters, but the Greens don't give a damn about that." Indeed. When Socialist Deputy Vincent Peillon arrived to open a waste dump in his Somme constituency last April, he was attacked by a mob of 200 stone- and egg-throwing hunters and had to be airlifted out, leaving five wounded gendarmes behind him.

The issue cuts deeper than a few extra weeks of shooting. Now that 82% of France's population live in towns, those left behind in the rural areas that account for 60% of the country's land are feeling increasingly abandoned. "The hunting issue is revealing the distress that exists in the French countryside," says Sabarot. "The country is being called upon to be a weekend playground for city-dwellers." In that context, ecologists and wildlife preservation groups are often seen as meddling city slickers.

As a regular target of vandalism and physical intimidation, the Bird Protection League knows how ugly things can get. "The hunters have to understand that nature doesn't belong to them any more than it does to other people," says Dubois. "We've got to save as much of the natural world that can still be saved." But France's hunters believe that their own natural world is disappearing. If they can't take that frustration out on our feathered friends, they may be tempted to look for some other target. Jospin seems worried that the prey of choice could be him.