Annie Genevard defended, this Thursday, July 24, his strategy to combat epizotic liver dermatosis (DNC) during a trip to Savoie and Haute-Savoie, where more than a thousand animals have been sacrificed since the end of June 2025.
It is “an extremely dangerous disease due to its infection and strength of the virus,” he said after a “crisis meeting” in Chambéry with representatives of breeders, elected officials and authorities of the two departments, pointing out a “risk that this will take the entire French cattle sector” if he did not stop.
The established struggle protocol, “in which no one has issued a scientific reserve, in no case in reference organizations,” is based on the euthanasia of herds where cases, vaccination and biosecurity have been detected, that is, that animals do not move.
The first case was reported on June 29 and dated July 23, 34 homes were detected in Savoy and Haute-Savoie, according to the Ministry. To date, some 1,500 animals, for 33 herds, have been sacrificed, according to Christian Convers, general secretary of Rural Coordination and Breeding in Savoy.
“Genevard, you get too late”
These “depopulation” measures that are thus aroused a strong emotion in the affected areas where some breeders have tried for several days to block access to their farms to prevent sacrifice.
About fifty breeders and their supporters gathered early this Thursday in front of Savoy’s prefecture to denounce the “massacre” of their animals and ask for a “selective” killing of sick animals to guarantee the survival of their operations.
“Genevard, you happen too late,” they sang led by the Peasant Confederation and Rural Coordination.
“We are more relevant to be here (on the street) than to be inside to support a circus that will once again bring to validate something that has been decided in the Parisian offices,” said Stéphane Galais, spokesman for Confection Paysanne. The minister should have come to know “those who had demolished, those who suffer, in fact, and discuss what alternatives we can have, what projections we will have. Because there is vaccination: Do you continue killing the cows? That is the question,” he insisted.
Wind breeders stopped against euthanasia
Some twenty protesters were also present near the Haut-Savoyard farm where the minister was, wielding signs that proclaimed “you are murderers.” This reproduction of Hauteville-Sur-Fier, near Annecy, which provides milk for Emmental and Raclette, began on Sunday to vaccinate his cows.
From now on, “the countdown is activated. We know that by August 10 or 12, our flock will be out of danger. But here it is, these two weeks remain when the risk is still important,” said the operator, Denis Trachant.
But for the moment, “everyone is afraid”, and “humanly, it is very difficult,” he said, very moved.
According to him, the danger that weighs in the French bovine sector is “real” and “we cannot build a crisis after reproaches.” He declared “ready without hesitation” in the future to give up the animals to the breeders who have to rebuild their cattle.
The DNC, which affects cattle, buffalo and bait, is transmitted by insect bites such as stomoxe (a spicy fly) or taon, but it is not transmitted to humans, nor by contact with infected cattle, nor by food, nor by insect bites.
“I want to greet and thank” the operators “who accepted this sacrifice to save reproduction. They are heroes,” said the minister, ensuring that compensation “would be quickly developed” for euthanized animal breeders, “until the damage that was consented.”
The minister also paid “tribute to the breeders who accepted, in a citizen spirit and to protect all the farms”, that their herds, where cases had been detected, were killed.
Source: BFM TV
