The list of protesters in France, where nothing seems to be going smoothly at the moment, keeps growing. Even animal protection is joining in with a day of shelter closures that will take place across France, including in Nice, this Wednesday.
The reason? The demand for a cat sterilization law (particularly for stray cats but also for pets).
The intended recipients are the parliamentarians because the cost of the operation might reveal relatively large figures, given that there are more than 10 million cats in France!
Furthermore, we’re no longer in antiquity when Egyptians made cats the symbol of the goddess Bastet, the protector of fertility. Nor are we in Cicero’s time to discuss them in his “De Natura Rerum.”
Nowadays, cats are relegated to the comic strips of humorist illustrator Geluck rather than to the character Sylvester the Cat.
It is not surprising that, in this context, it has lost its central role to the friend/rival, the dog, which has claimed the highly prized title of man’s best friend. Cats, as we know, prefer solitude and do not enjoy a reputation as loyal animals.
However, the situation of stray, feral, and abandoned cats is not very encouraging from a health perspective and can lead to diseases by transmitting infections. Moreover, as a good mammal, the cat is also an indefatigable breeder: a pair of cats can theoretically produce 15,000 offspring in five years according to statistics from the Animal Protection Federation (FPA).
Andrée Alziari-Négre, who has long been engaged in animal protection, defends herself from any “crusade”. On the contrary, she states: “It’s just a matter of balance. I am requesting that the situation be brought under control for a better quality of life for the cats.”
We await the response from the political world.
