France/Fondation Brigitte Bardot: Anti-Fur Campaign: Causing a Commotion

20 November 2008

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation’s new advertisement campaign to raise public awareness of the plight of animals used in the fur industry has been appearing around Paris and several other provincial cities over the last few days.

Three different images portray shoppers (a young woman with a rabbit-fur waistcoat and bag, a young man wearing a coat with a fur-lined hood and a woman in a long coat) all standing in front of killed animals.

The “French Fur Association” created in September 2008, has reacted by submitting a formal complaint to l’Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité – the Advertisements Professional Regulation Authority – (formerly BVP), denouncing the “violence” of the campaign.

The real violence, however, is to be found in the daily lives of the millions of foxes, mink, chinchillas and other animals living in wire cages on intensive fur farms, prisoners in barren enclosures where their physical and behavioural needs cannot be expressed. These animals, unable to dig or swim, are driven so mad that they begin to self mutilate.

The fur industry is highly pollutive, as with any kind of intensive farming, where after living a life of utter misery, the animals are then gassed, electrocuted and often skinned alive, as is frequently seen at markets in China.

Some fur producers have begun indicating the ‘traceable origin’ of their products... However, the authenticity of this ‘traceability’ was brought into serious question a few days ago by the seizure in Paris of more than 4000 coats with collars and hoods lined with dog and cat fur, yet all containing labels reading ‘synthetic fur’.

If it is possible to pass off real fur as fake, it must also be easy to pass off any kind of skin as something else. If in doubt, the best approach is to avoid buying fur at all, even if it is labeled ‘synthetic’, for often it is not the case.

Let’s not forget the 50 million animals (not including rabbits) killed every year to feed the fur industry.

Source: Fondation Brigitte Bardot
Author: Fondation Brigitte Bardot

Link: Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité - ARPP
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