VINZIEUX, FRANCE – NEWS AND COMMENT: A 47-year-old fire officer, named as Gérard A by the media, was so incensed by being kept awake by the crowing of his neighbour’s rooster, Marcel, that he shot it and finished it off with an iron bar in June last year. The man also pulled salty water on his neighbours’ vegetable patch because he was so mad at it. He admitted cruelty to animals, transporting a firearm without a legitimate reason and damaging property. He was seen on his neighbour’s security camera footage. He was fined €300 and banned from possessing firearms for three years. He regretted his crime but he said that he had become exasperated. His killing has been called “cockicide”.
Marcel was owned by Sébastien Verney, a teacher, who had told the court that his family was “profoundly shocked”. His seven-year-old daughter is frightened to go outside to play on the swing because she is afraid of dying, he said. He started an association called, “Let Them Sing” (Laissez-faire Chanter) to protect what he called the “sensorial heritage” of rural France. I suppose he means that he wants to protect the sights, sounds and smells of the French countryside. The events took place in southern France.
