Europe - Sobeval: Custody for having filmed in the calf slaughterhouse, supplier of the luxury industry

After a report for mistreatment received at the association, One Voice reveals the images of the largest French luxury leather production company, specializing in calf skins: Sobeval, in the Dordogne. The investigator dispatched to the scene by the association has just come out of thirty-six hours of police custody... for having wanted to show as many people as possible what no one ever sees: the production line from which the leather comes handbags sold at exorbitant prices by French luxury brands, and the resulting animal suffering. One Voice files a complaint for mistreatment by professionals (a crime!), for duly noted and documented offences.

Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice, says:

“What should we do when the authorities do not enforce the weak laws that exist to protect animals? Shut up? Let it be? While those who mistreat animals can continue unmolested, our investigator spends thirty-six hours in police custody. The day when the law will be respected, when cruelties will be sanctioned, there will no longer be a need for whistleblowers. But that day, we are still a long way off… »No, our investigator will not be the scapegoat of the agro-food industry!

With this survey, we touch on one of the problems of the commitment to respect the laws related to animals in France. A few weeks ago a journalist informed us of abuse at Sobeval. One Voice had then decided, once again, to act as a whistleblower and to replace itself, as often and like others (L214 had denounced the agony of calves for their flesh in this same slaughterhouse, videos at support) to public services. A shame.

Our investigator has just come out of two grueling nights and a day in police custody. He filmed, without breakage and without interfering, the chain of the deadly Sobeval factory, and recorded the offenses for which we are filing a complaint. In a slaughterhouse, then - the same slaughterhouses in which Emmanuel Macron had promised during the 2017 presidential campaign to install cameras to monitor the application of the law on animal abuse. Promise not kept.

The images we publish are unbearable: the grueling pace of the workers, the coldness of this industry have nothing to do with the hundreds of individuals it kills daily and transforms into tons of corpses. In this sector, only money is king, to the detriment of the animals caught in this endless gear, exclusively considered as very profitable pre-raw materials.

The horror of French luxury

To be the result of artificial insemination, to be born in a world that has nothing natural about it, to be torn from one's mother and sent to die... At the Sobeval slaughterhouse, in the South-West, from 500 to 600 babies a few months old are killed every day.

Babies ? Yes, calves. Only calves, French. The skin of calves, which is much finer and softer than that of their elders, is sold for a much higher price. It is “French quality”, we are told. French-style luxury, for houses such as "Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel and LVMH", according to Gilles Gauthier, the General Manager of the Boulazac site. For eight years, the company has been investing to expand and, we are told, to ensure that the skins, products derived from these young cattle, are as least damaged as possible (one herdsman, however, has a field day for distribute the blows) and sold to these tanneries supplying brands that make French leather goods a national pride. But the underside of these "luxury" skins are not pretty to see.

The Sobeval slaughterhouse factory: a carousel of death for calves

These babies and very young cattle arrive by truck, tightly packed, sometimes injured or sick. They still have to wait for the slaughterhouse to open. In the early morning, men make them enter the slaughter line, under the blows if necessary, struck by some. Filmed offenses for which we will file a complaint. Then, it's the infernal merry-go-round. They advance by the hundreds in a labyrinthine file which has only death as a destination. Stunned or not depending on the type of slaughter, seized with spasms, hanging by a leg crossed by a hook, head down, they seem to regain consciousness before their throat is cut. Blood spurts out and spills into the gutters and all around. Their skin is torn from them, then their bodies methodically cut into pieces.

The skins are then piled on top of each other, and the first salting treatment begins. These dozens of heaps about one meter high, whose liquids are dripping little by little, stay there for a while before being sent elsewhere for further tanning. And one day become a pair of gloves or shoes, a bag, a car steering wheel cover, sports equipment, a hardcover book cover...

For further...

Calfskin, contrary to many presuppositions on the issue, is a lucrative, polluting product resulting from animal suffering (see this other article to deepen the subject).

We have also published a petition on the One Voice website. We demand the immediate closure of this slaughterhouse which breaks the law in many respects and call on luxury companies to move towards painless fashion. As a reminder, we are filing a complaint against Sobeval for the offenses committed and recorded.