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The mayor of a French rural village has made national headlines after calling for farm noises to be granted “national heritage” status.
A retired farmer himself, Bruno Dionis du Séjour wrote in his local council’s newsletter that crowing cocks, mooing cattle and braying donkeys should be protected from legal action as “mean courtroom gesticulations appear to be multiplying everywhere in France”.
According to the mayor, too many fines are imposed on livestock farmers and rural churches are forced to stop ringing their bells in the morning because of complaints by “selfish new residents, most often of urban extraction, who discover the countryside like a fool would discover that eggs don’t grow on trees”.
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