French Muslims Fear About Banning Halal Poultry

Paris, MINA – Several major French mosques have expressed concern that a proposed ban on the slaughter of poultry without first stunning the animals would effectively lead to a ban on halal chicken, while the agriculture ministry says this concern is unfounded. EURACTIV France reported.

The Grand Mosques of Paris, Lyon, and Evry raised concerns of a “dramatic situation” in a press release on 18 March, where they said a change in rules effectively meant the slaughter of poultry in line with halal practices “will no longer be authorized” in France from July.

The mosques based this assessment on a technical instruction from France’s agriculture and food ministry published on 23 November.

The rules, which ban animals being slaughtered without first being stunned, will make it impossible to guarantee the respect of “dogmatic and fundamental principles of halal ritual slaughter,” the mosques said.

By choosing to impose green objectives without undertaking a comprehensive impact assessment, the European Commission is leaving the EU farming sector vulnerable and waiting like “animals to be slaughtered”, according to the head of the EU farmers association.

The instruction states that “animals must be spared all pain, distress or avoidable suffering” and that in conventional slaughter “the loss of consciousness and sensibility of all poultry must be achieved after stunning and maintained throughout the bleeding process until death.”

However, the ministry document also reiterates that individual slaughterhouses may be exempt from the requirement to stun animals before slaughter and the ministry denied it has introduced a ban on the no-stun practice.

“To our knowledge, no suspension of authorisation for the derogation has been pronounced following the publication of this instruction,” an agriculture ministry spokesperson said.

The instruction only seeks to clarify the terms of a decree issued in 2011, which sets out the conditions needed for slaughterhouses to be exempt, the spokesperson confirmed.

The signatories of the mosques’ statement – which was published several months after the instruction – had not responded to EURACTIV’s questions about their concerns by the time of publication. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)