VIDEO. Presidential: the hunters “assume” not to have invited Yannick Jadot to the great oral candidacy – franceinfo

Thierry Coste, political adviser to the National Federation of Hunters, the lobbyist for hunting in France, “completely assumes” Tuesday March 22 on franceinfo not to have invited the ecologist Yannick Jadot to the great oral of the presidential candidates before the congress of the Federation which takes place in the morning at the Maison de la Chimie, in Paris. “What’s the point of offering him a platform”, when it’s “someone who constantly spits on you”, he wonders. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France insoumise will also be absent. Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron are represented. Candidates must discuss the place and role of hunting in our society. >> Prohibit hunting, limit it, defend it: what are the candidates for the presidential election proposing? franceinfo: Why didn’t you invite Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon? Thierry Coste: We assume completely. It’s always difficult to hear people talk a lot about hunting in the media, but never have accepted any dialogue with us. We are not going to be hypocrites. Someone who constantly spits on you without ever having spoken to you, we say all the same, what’s the point of offering him a platform when what interests us is to talk about the substance, it’s not to talk about the controversies on a few proposals that we criticize a lot, is to debate on the substance, on the place of hunting in biodiversity, in rurality. And why haven’t they picked up their phones for five years? I had a lot of debates with Yannick Jadot. Each time, I told him: “We are open”. It’s crazy all the same, he must not have a telephone. What do you expect from the other candidates? Hunting is a subject of society, therefore a divisive subject, of course. It is a rural activity which concerns 4 million people and we have to discuss what we are tomorrow, in five years, in ten years. What do we do on the hunting ground? How do we live with other users? How do we debate with farmers or foresters? Hunting is an activity that is “conflictual” in the field. Game damage will soon be 100 million euros. So we have real subjects that concern agriculture, forestry, local elected officials and other users of nature. The debate is open. This great oral is also an opportunity to discuss hunting accidents? Of course we are going to address this subject because coexistence with other users of nature is very important. It goes very well in most cases. “We are at 7 or 8 dead. It is 7 or 8 dead too many, but we have reacted enormously in terms of security. The disadvantage is that indeed, when there is overmediatization around a subject as dramatic, it is necessary to have a debate.” Thierry Coste, political adviser to the National Federation of Hunters at franceinfo The debate, we will do it with the candidates, but we will do it above all with all the other users of nature in the next two months, because we have a real information debate on proper use. I assume that you can hunt and go for walks every Sunday and every public holiday. It just needs to be explained well. And then, when you have to compromise on a certain number of places, you have to do it because sometimes sharing is not possible, because there is too much concentration. This is what we do in state forests. Hunting is prohibited on weekends. And it hasn’t been a problem for 25 years. You were treated rather well by Emmanuel Macron during his five-year term. What more do you expect? It’s not complicated. Five years ago, we had 30 proposals to submit to all the candidates because the hunt had plenty of open topics. Today, we have six particular points. It shows all the same that for five years, we have done a lot of work. So it is both the strong action of Willy Schraen, the president of the National Federation, but it is also the very strong support of the President of the Republic. But he didn’t do it just for hunting, he did what we asked for, that hunting be integrated into biodiversity policies. We entered the French Office for Biodiversity. Before, we had a qualified majority in a hunting office. We only have three members left. We have developed a nature police which is also a hunting police, which is very good. Indeed, Emmanuel Macron’s record is very good. This is no doubt why we have far fewer proposals to make and why we are much more involved in how we support this reform which is 5 years old and which is rather very positive.