Horror As Lambs Slaughtered In Name Of Roquefort Cheese

Story By: Joseph GolderSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

Newsflash/L214

This shocking footage shows lambs living on top of one another in France and being mercilessly slaughtered because mass production facilities use their mothers’ milk to make Roquefort cheese.

The ewes are made to give birth once a year so they can continuously be producing milk that is then turned into the famous French blue cheese Roquefort. Only a quarter of the lambs they give birth to are kept alive, and the rest are killed.

This graphic and distressing footage shows lambs living on top of one another at the SARL Grimal fattening facility and being slaughtered at an Arcadie Sud-Ouest abattoir near the town of Rodez in the south-central French department of Aveyron in the Occitanie region.

Newsflash/L214

The footage was shot by animal activist organisation L214, who revealed the shocking goings on at the abattoir today (Wednesday 24th June).

They have also filed a complaint for “serious abuse of animals” and also called for the “slaughterhouse to be urgently closed down” because it “has serious structural problems and its slaughtering practices are seriously deficient”.

In 2016, veterinary services had already stated that there were “major non-conformity issues” at the slaughterhouse regarding how lambs were being put to death.

Today, as a result of the video, which was released this morning, and of L214 filing a complaint, the Minister of Agriculture, Didier Guillaume, has suspended the abattoir’s operations.

Newsflash/L214

In a statement quoted in local French media, the Ministry said: “A video published today (…) shows unacceptable practices with serious breaches of animal protection rules.”

They added that a “full inspection” of the installations must be carried out.

Arcadie Sud-Ouest claim on their website that they are France’s number 1 slaughterers of sheep.

According to L214, a lamb is slaughtered at the abattoir “every 10 seconds”.

They said: “They are slaughtered alive (ritual slaughter) or, theoretically, stunned before being bled. The stunning of the lambs is done by electrocution, but the bad practices and the infernal rhythm entail the bleeding and the hooking of lambs that are still completely conscious.”