Frenchman fined for shooting dead Marcel the noisy cockerel

A man has been convicted of animal cruelty after he became so exasperated by his neighbour’s noisy cockerel he shot it dead and then impaled it on an iron bar.  

The unnamed Frenchman was given a five-month suspended prison sentence for killing the chicken, which was called Marcel.  

Marcel, who lived with his owner Sebastien Verney in the village of Vinzieux in the Ardèche region of southern France, was shot dead in May by one of Mr Verney’s neighbours who had become infuriated with his incessant crowing.  

Mr Verney then launched an online petition targeted at the local council and minister for agriculture and food demanding “justice for Marcel”. 

His case was also taken up by the 30 Million Friends Foundations, an animal welfare charity.  

Marcel was “showered with love by our children and was our home's pride and joy, punctuating our daily life with a few songs and his beautiful presence in the henhouse,” Mr Verney wrote.

But the “poor rooster” was “massacred with extreme cruelty”, destroying the haven of peace his family had built in their rural idyll of Vinzieux.  

The countryside must not become a “museum”, Mr Verney added. “Who will be the next victim? Turtle doves tweeting, the wheat harvest, the growing tomatoes, the braying of the donkey, the sound of our bell towers or the grazing of our cows?"

Almost 100,000 people have now signed the petition, which also launched a campaign calling itself Let Them Sing!.  

On top of the suspended sentence, the neighbour who had taken umbrage at Marcel’s crowing was also fined €300 (£273) and banned from carrying a weapon for three years.

But Mr Verney said his neighbour’s punishment was cold comfort, telling the AFP news agency “This will never repair what was done”.

The case was reminiscent of another involving a noisy cockerel, Maurice, who lived on the island of Oléron just off France’s Atlantic coast.  

Last year Maurice was taken to court by his disgruntled neighbours – a retired couple in their late 60s who had a second home on the island – for crowing too loudly.

But in what was described as a victory for the whole of France by Maurice’s owner Corinne Fesseau, the courts ruled he could not be silenced under noise pollution legislation and ordered the out-of-towners to pay €1,000 in damages to Ms Fesesau.  

Conflict between France’s rural and urban populations over issues such as noise has increased in recent years, as wealthier city-dwellers buy summer homes in the countryside.  

Other court cases in recent years have seen complaints made against ducks and geese for clucking and honking too loudly.

Cases such as those of Maurice and Marcel have an additional layer of significance in France, because the Gallic cockerel is a symbol of national life often associated with French sports teams and other institutions.  

Some in the farming community have complained their traditional rural way of life is under threat by their metropolitan compatriots.