Brigitte Bardot to Fortnum & Mason: Keep Your Hands Off our Geese!

Fortnum & Mason has had quite a week. Tuesday saw a flurry of activity outside its Piccadilly store, as volunteers turned out to protest against the sale of cruel foie gras. Hundreds of online activists have been giving the company a piece of their mind on Twitter. And now, from across the Channel, Brigitte Bardot and French animal protection groups, representing tens of thousands of French citizens, have joined the call for Fortnum & Mason to end unethical foie gras sales.

French organisations, including the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, Society for the Protection of Animals (SPA), L214 and Rights of Animals, have come together to send a letter to the store’s managing director, Ewan Venters, voicing the opposition of their French supporters to the barbaric force-feeding of geese. “[W]e respectfully urge you not to help keep this inhumane and shrinking industry alive”, they wrote, highlighting the growing movement against shameful foie gras production within France.

Sixties sex siren Brigitte Bardot had her own comment to add. “Mr Venters seems to be one of those imbeciles who, just for a fleeting moment of flavour, is willing to ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence that force-feeding ducks and geese to produce grotesquely enlarged livers for foie gras is horrifically cruel”, says the actor.

On St George’s Day, people united to tell Fortnum & Mason that foie gras was un-English. Now, French people are standing up to tell the company that many of them want nothing to do with it either. People of every country can stand together and agree on one thing: this vile product, manufactured by torturing birds, is unnecessary and unkind, and no company should be selling it.

Image: Michel Bernanau / CC BY-SA 2.0