It is hard to raise much sympathy for a wild boar in France: hunters like to shoot and eat them; farmers claim they cause around €1m of damage to crops every year; health officials claim they spread diseases. The unfortunately named Rillette – it means a type of potted meat – however, is the exception to the general rule.
A threat by the local authorities in the Aube, eastern France, to put down the female boar has spread into an international campaign to save Rillette supported by animal activist and former actor Brigitte Bardot.
Even critics of the campaign admit the buzz has been impressive, with one French YouTuber called Monsieur Seby (903,000 subscribers), writing a song to save the sanglier (boar).
Élodie Cappé, who runs a riding stables at Chaource, found Rillette, an apparently orphaned piglet, rooting through rubbish near dustbins at her farm in April 2023. She contacted the local authority to report the animal but after she failed to find a sanctuary or park willing to take Rillette off her hands, she built the boar a 1.2 sq km enclosure. Cappé says that, with the nearest neighbours 3km away, the animal is no threat to anyone and has become part of the family.
“I called many organisations but they all passed the buck. They told me to give her the bullet,” she said.
“We tried to find her a place in an animal park but nobody wanted her. Now she’s one of us. She lives in the stables, has her own basket and sleeps in the hay. She’s really like a dog and comes when she’s called – better than our dogs,” Cappé told France 3 television.
She added: “I’ve had support from all over the world … people saying it’s unacceptable, abject, inadmissible.”
A petition to save Rillette has already been signed by more than 170,000 people across the world. Now locals near Cappé’s farm are planning a silent march next weekend.
“This adorable boar is very close to humans and deserves to live in conditions as close to its natural habitat as possible. Although Mrs Cappé is doing her utmost to maintain these conditions, without increased support the future of our wild boar is uncertain,” the petition reads.
In December, Bardot joined the scrap, writing an open letter. “Help! I demand that Rillette be spared. What monsters are demanding she be put down … this little animal has the right to live, indeed it is a duty. She is innocent. Euthanasia is a crime! We are governed by assassins,” the 60s star wrote.
Aube officials are unmoved, saying the situation is “irregular” and the boar presents a health risk as a potential carrier of “diseases including swine fever and bovine tuberculosis”.
“There is also a high risk of these diseases spreading to farm or domestic animals. They also present risks in terms of public safety, as wild species can be the cause of potentially tragic accidents,” said the public prosecutor in the departmental capital of Troyes.
“The keeping of a boar, an undomesticated species, is irregular. In fact, only animals with a known and lawful origin can claim a permission certificate … A wild boar taken directly from the wild does not have a legal origin and cannot be given one.”
It ordered Rillette to be placed in a “suitable sanctuary” on pain of death and said Cappé was “strongly urged” to comply with this injunction to avoid the animal being put down and legal action taken against her.
Le Chasseur Français – a magazinecovering hunting, shooting and fishing – is even less sympathetic to the swine’s plight. “It’s not the first time, and won’t be the last, that a wild boar has brought France to tears. Animal rights activists are up in arms. On each occasion, the good faith of the owners was not in doubt. Nevertheless, this media coverage is certainly not a good thing,” it wrote. “The law remains the law, and the authorities refused her several times. Even a lawyer’s intervention was not enough to settle the case ... it is now getting out of control.”
The magazine disputes the claim in the petition that France’s wild boar population is under threat. “Now that made us laugh,” it adds.
