French billionaire Olivier Bouygues faces suspended jail term over wildlife killings

The case is being heard in Orléans, around 120 kilometres south-west of Paris, where public prosecutor Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren on Tuesday also requested the maximum €750,000 fine and a five-year ban on activities linked to hunting.

Protected predators were killed to preserve game for regular hunting parties, Bochenek-Puren argued, describing an organised system that continued for years under “the same owner”.

“Damage to biodiversity was major,” she said, condemning methods she described as “prohibited” and “barbaric”.

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Carcasses and banned traps

Investigators searched Bouygues's Fontenaille estate in La Ferté-Saint-Aubin after an anonymous tip-off.

They found “animal carcasses in an advanced state of decomposition”, a member of the French Biodiversity Agency, a public body responsible for protecting wildlife, said.

Photographs shown in court included dead kestrels, great egrets, harriers, common buzzards and great cormorants. Cats were also killed.

Weapons, an excavator and around 100 jaw traps, banned since 1995, were also found, along with documents listing species to be eliminated and killings carried out over several years. Bonuses of around €100 were paid.

Bouygues, 75, said he had “never seen” the carcass pit, although he acknowledged knowing it existed and preferred to call it an “ecological pit”.

“I have other things to do than manage the property's affairs on a daily basis,” Bouygues told the court.

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'Ancestral' hunting practices

Five other defendants, including estate managers and gamekeepers, face requested suspended sentences of one to four years, fines and temporary hunting licence bans.

Hunting animals considered harmful to game was “deeply rooted” in Sologne, France's second-largest forest and a popular hunting area for wealthy people, one defendant said.

Hugo H, the estate manager, also rejected describing the practice as destruction. The killings were “ancestral practices”, he said, describing them as “regulation of species that threaten our game or fish”.

“Panic” led him to destroy hunting records listing killings and bonuses on the morning of the police search.

All defendants rejected Bouygues's responsibility and the allegation that they acted as an organised group. Under France's environmental code, that aggravating factor means the offences carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a €750,000 fine.

“They are protecting each other,” Bochenek-Puren said.

Bouygues's defence is seeking his acquittal on all charges. Prosecutors' demands were “excessive”, his lawyer Eric Grassin argued, rejecting what he called “an intellectual construction that consists of saying the employer knew”.

“My client has never personally committed acts of destruction,” Grassin said.

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Environmental damage

Around 15 environmental associations joined the case as civil parties, alongside the Loiret Departmental Hunters' Federation.

Defendants were seeking to “clear the boss”, lawyer Patrice Grillon, representing animal protection groups, said.

The hunting federation is also seeking compensation, citing harm to hunting's reputation. The offences had caused “damage to the image of hunting”, its lawyer Benoît Berger said.

Several civil parties have sought compensation for ecological and moral damage.

A verdict is due on 23 October.
(with newswires)