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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joe Golder, Agency: Newsflash

A man who found a rooster called Marcel too loud and shot it dead before impaling it has been jailed for five months after the killing caused widespread outrage in France.

The man was jailed by a court in the city of Privas, in the Ardeche department in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of south-eastern France.

He was on trial for killing the rooster last May in the small village of Vinzieux, home to 450 people, after complaining it was too loud. A petition was launched soon after the incident demanding “justice” for Marcel and it received nearly 100,000 signatures.

According to French newspaper La Depeche, the man, who has not been named, shot the rooster with a rifle and then hit it with a metal bar.

The bird’s owner, Sebastien Verney, had launched the “Justice for Marcel” petition on Facebook, seeking to make Marcel a symbol of countryside noises. He said in the petition: “We are in Ardeche, a proud rural territory, so who will be the next victim: the song of turtledoves, wheat being harvested, tomatoes growing, a braying donkey, the sound of our church bells or the grazing of our cows.”

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