Not for the faint-hearted

THICK, fleshy, severed cow’s tongues, their tips curled neatly on to the butcher’s tray. Skinned whole rabbits, limbs stretched taut as on a rack, eyes glassy. A moist pink blooded pig’s brain, decorated jauntily with a sprig of parsley. A butcher’s counter in France is a feast for carnivores—and a shop of horrors for the squeamish. Now it has also become the object of a violent anti-meat campaign, which is stirring a resistance movement among the country’s bouchers.

In recent months, a growing number of boucheries, particularly in northern France, have been vandalised or sprayed with fake blood. “Meat is murder”, or “Stop speciesism”, a campaign message designed to halt abuse of one species by another, are the attackers’ signature graffiti. Such has been the concern among butchers that last month they sent a joint letter to Gérard Collomb, the interior minister, to demand…Continue reading
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