Under pressure from animal rights associations, the New York City Council voted this Wednesday evening (French time) to ban foie gras. An incomprehensible decision for producers and that some restaurants could bypass. The measure will apply in 2022.
New Yorkers and tourists who visit Big Apple will no longer be able to taste foie gras. So decided this Wednesday the municipal council of the city which has just voted in plenary session a moratorium on the sale of foie gras, was it produced locally. The decision comes after an intense lobbying campaign against foie gras, led by the animal rights association Peta. For several months these anti-speciesist activists have carried out punches, in particular in front of the City Hall, to denounce the methods of force-feeding deemed “cruel and inhuman.” “
Like L214 in France, the association has released many videos to show the suffering of animals and win the battle. It doesn’t matter that these videos were shot in Eastern Europe …
Between $ 500 and $ 2,000 in fines
The text adopted by 42 votes for and 6 against, and carried by the elected Democrat Carlina Rivera, member of the municipal majority of Mayor Bill de Blasio, aims to “prohibit the sale of certain poultry products including birds from force-feeding. “
Providing a fine between 500 and 2000 dollars, it was voted during a stormy meeting of the city council while outside activists of “Voters for animal rights” gave voice …
“A historic day for animals in New York”
“This is a historic day for animals at New York City Council,” said Council Chairman Corey Johnson to the applause of dozens of activists. “We want a great city judged, of course, by the way we treat our fellow citizens, but we also want to be judged by the way we treat animals … We want to be at the forefront of protecting human beings. animals in New York. ”
This ban is of course a hard blow for producers including Ariane Daguin. The daughter of Gers chef André Daguin is the head of D’Artagnan Foods, which produces its foie gras with two farms in New York State using painless force-feeding methods for animals. The future of the 400 people employed is now more than ever in danger. For Ariane Daguin, the decision is eminently political, the elected representatives of New York preferring to follow the booming vegetarian or vegan urban electorate, rather than to preserve a foreign gastronomic tradition. She, like other American players in the sector, announced their intention to bring an action before the courts.
Already banned in California
The New York decision is a first for the city but is not new in the United States. In 2008, a city councilor tried to have the New York State Senate ban force-feeding, to no avail. In 2004, a law passed in California (but entered into force in 2012) prohibited the serving of foie gras in restaurants under penalty of a fine of 1,000 dollars. This law was later overturned by a district court in 2015 before, in 2017, the Pasadena Court of Appeal reinstated the ban on foie gras throughout California. Seized by foie gras producers in Canada and New York, as well as by a Californian restaurateur, the US Supreme Court finally ruled on January 7, validating the definitive ban on foie gras in California.
In 2006, Chicago tried to ban foie gras before backing down. On the scale of the French foie gras sector, the decision taken by New York yesterday remains rather symbolic given the volumes exported. Since the American surtaxes decided in 1999 – doubling of customs duties in retaliation for Europe’s refusal to authorize meat with American hormones – then lifted in 2012, exports of French foie gras were almost zero out of the 5,000 tonnes shipped. every year abroad.
In 2014, however, the industry considered the United States as one of the five markets to be conquered, along with China, Brazil, Singapore and Russia. In 2016 and 2017, the episode of the avian flu epidemic had reduced ambitions to nothing. One question remains: will New York restaurants defy the ban and risk the $ 2,000 fine?
The key figures of foie gras
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