1When Jennifer Blecha and Helga Leitner spoke of the New Urban Chicken Keepers (NUCKs) in 2015, they created a geography based on the reinvention of imagination in the context of the development of urban agriculture (Blecha, 2007; Blecha, Leitner, 2014). This theme is frequently used; animals are viewed as a tool in the socio-ecological transition, which is sometimes accompanied by a criticism of neoliberalism; chicken farming is thus a form of resistance against the deterritorialization of food (Bartling, 2012). In France, this social perspective is likewise adopted when speaking of the return of urban animals, with the accent placed on both farm animals when recalling the importance of horses or cattle in Paris, for example, and wild animals such as birds when evoking the idea of wilderness. Between the reintroduction of nature to the urban landscape and the return to the cultural legacy of animals, there remains a distinct division between nature and farming, tradition and modernity. This ambivalence makes chickens particularly interesting, as they simultaneously represent the farmyard and – let me stress this point – backyard ecology. These two positions – the former traditional and the latter more contemporary – form part of a spatial-temporal framework that will be analysed in this paper.
2The desire for Galliformes is not new and loving chickens to the point of making them domestic pets is part of a long-standing tradition in France. Indeed, chickens lived in the court of the French king: some were destined to be eaten, while others were dearly cherished (Pieragnoli, 2016). Much later, in the 1950s, photographer Nina Leen depicted a Parisian woman running through the streets and the metro with her pet galliform. In sharp contrast, when these photographs were taken, a large-scale agro-industrial poultry complex involving all types of poultry farming was being set up in Brittany on the other side of the country. After the hygienist period during which farm animals were driven out of cities in favour of domestic pets, the formers have since made an impressive return to the urban and suburban milieu: surveys estimate that almost 10% of the French population owns chickens (ObSoCo, 2022).
3Relatively little research has been conducted on chickens over the past ten years, although the lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic recently revived the subject (Laligant, 2022; Oliver, 2020, 2021a). Surveys in the United States and France have explored three main themes relating to chickens: hygiene-related topics at the interface between health and social issues (Elkhoraibi, Blatchford, Pitesky, Mench, 2014; Garber, Hill, Rodriguez, Gregory, Voelker, 2007; Pollock, Stephen, Skuridina, Kosatsky, 2012); the sociological characteristics of hobby chicken farmers (Fortunel, 2024; McClintock, Pallana, Wooten, 2014); and the issues of urban governance (Butler, 2012). These different research topics shed light on the central role played by chickens in the metabolism of our contemporary societies (Oliver, Turnbull, 2021). These tropisms of urbanised societies in rich countries nevertheless overlook certain approaches that seek to understand poultry farming in all its diversity (Hovorka, 2012). Even though chickens are undoubtedly making their return to urban landscapes, this comeback does not reflect the diverse array of situations: in suburban and even rural zones, chickens are reappearing as pets in the family home, while their presence in intensive farms is simultaneously abhorred. This is the paradox of our societies: chickens are rejected from professional farms to be ‘saved’ at home. What factors can explain this paradox? And how can we determine the spatialisation of this phenomenon dispersed across individual or community gardens? To identify and characterise these factors, this paper focuses on the situation in France throughout the 20th century up to the present day.
- 1 On an annual basis, France has around 547 million hens and chickens for professional farming purpos (...)
4The study will adopt a humanimal approach (Estebanez, Gouabault, Michalon, 2013), which considers animals in their reciprocal relationship with humans. This perspective seeks to understand how this human-chicken relationship contributes to transforming social spaces and collectively building territories. The bidirectional relation between humans and animals (or between humans and non-humans) underlies the reality of animal existence, and in the context of domestication, it is characterised by human domination (Porcher, 2014). This reality, whether praised or denounced, horizontal or vertical, is intrinsic to domestication, as the majority of the world’s 26 billion chickens1 are dependent on humans (Joignot, 2019). This domesticated state is integrated into what the anthropologist Jean-Pierre Digard calls the domestication system, that is, a group of techniques and representations that form part of human history and society. For chickens, several systems thus co-exist, comprised of various social configurations and functions at a given moment and in a given society (Digard, 2009), which are inscribed in their territories.
5Chickens are interesting animals, because people’s appreciation of them fluctuates between utility and affection in hybrid forms between rural and urban spaces, between the farmyard and the backyard. The research of Charles Stépanoff (2021) lends support to this assertion when he speaks of representations of animals as both animal-matter and animal-child. At one extreme is the meat, that is, chickens viewed as an animal-machine, and at the other is the friend to be loved and cherished, that is, birds viewed as an animal-companion. This leads us to consider the contemporary significance of why chickens have become a desirable animal reintroduced into the urban environment.
- 2 Regarding the limitations of this database, we would like to point out the absence of three metropo (...)
- 3 The selection was made based on the usage of French key words such as poul* (poule, poulet, poulail (...)
6For the present paper, data were taken from the National Directory of Voluntary and Community Organisations (VCO; Répertoire national des associations), which is a freely available online database (République française, 2023; https://www.data.gouv.fr/en/datasets/repertoire-national-des-associations/). This rich yet underexploited resource lists all voluntary and community organisations (or associations in French) created in France since 1907 and describes their objectives determined at the time of their founding. This database only records creations, so it is not possible to know the remaining balance; this disadvantage must be considered but does not affect the relevance of its use2. Among the many thousands of existing organisations, I identified and then extracted 779 VCO from 1907 to 2021 that explicitly mention chickens, poultry or poultry farming in their objectives3. The VCOs’ goals were read and classified manually according to the dominant theme: promoting a leisure or professional activity while checking the importance of hens in the organisation’s objective. Upon analysis it was necessary to divide non-professional breeders into hobby farming (for competitions) and agriculture (socio-ecological transition). The latter category was further subdivided based on objectives related to animals. It is important to note that the role of animals varies among organisations, especially over recent decades. Early 20th century organisations frequently use terms like “poultry”, “show”, or “breed”, (for simplicity’s sake, we will refer to them as ‘type A’ in the text) whereas newer socio-ecological groups focus on different goals, as outlined in the table below (“type B”).
Figure 1 Categories of Voluntary and Community Organisations created between 1907 and 2021
|
Category
|
Sub-category
|
Number
|
% of category
|
% total
|
|
PROFESSIONAL POULTRY FARMERS
|
|
Production and product promotions
|
Group of poultry farmers
|
86
|
39%
|
28.5%
|
|
Valorization of poultry products
|
39
|
18%
|
|
Group of certified poultry farmers
|
39
|
18%
|
|
Technical and regulatory operations
|
Health protection
|
22
|
10%
|
|
Employees/staff
|
15
|
7%
|
|
Setup/management of a slaughterhouse
|
9
|
4%
|
|
Poultry equipment
|
8
|
4%
|
|
AMATEUR POULTRY FARMING ORGANISATIONS
|
|
Hobby farming organisations (type A)
|
|
Hobby poultry farming and breeding
|
Breeders and hobby farmers
|
217
|
78%
|
35.5%
|
|
Promotion of amateur poultry farming in general
|
61
|
22%
|
|
Amateur breeding groups in the socio-ecological transition (type B)
|
|
Environment
|
Ecological movements
|
51
|
34%
|
29.5%
|
|
Animal welfare
|
Animal rescue/shelter collectives
|
39
|
17%
|
|
Chicken coop
|
Pro-chicken coop collectives
|
68
|
17%
|
|
Educational and social breeding
|
Social support and educational farms
|
34
|
15%
|
|
Disturbances
|
Anti-chicken coop collectives
|
22
|
9,5%
|
|
Anti-slaughterhouse collectives
|
2
|
0.8%
|
|
Wellness/therapeutic
|
Animal-assisted care collectives
|
13
|
6%
|
|
OTHERS
|
|
Gourmet food
|
Restaurant/gastronomy promotion
|
14
|
27.5%
|
6.5%
|
|
Development
|
Aid to underdeveloped countries
|
36
|
70.5%
|
|
Other
|
Hunting
|
1
|
2%
|
|
Total
|
|
779
|
|
100%
|
© Frederic Fortunel
7This table details the objectives of the VCOs by category. Remember that the choice of this classification and the sub-categories is not defined in advance. Their names and objectives are based on a qualitative grouping achieved by reading each of the missions assigned to the VCOs when they were created. The number of VCO is cumulative. It does not consider any closures, as this information is not contained in the original data file.
8This database search was analysed, mapped (using the municipality code of the association’s headquarters at the time of its creation) and then enhanced with the results of a survey on the motivation of future chicken keepers (48 online questionnaires completed by individuals volunteering to receive chickens) as well as eight qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders in their respective networks (i.e., producers, breeders, amateurs). This protocol aimed to answer the two following questions: 1) How did the objectives of French’s VCO evolve during the 20th and early 21st centuries? 2) What can we learn about the spatial distribution of the different organisations across France? We hypothesize that they are a relevant indicator of the evolution of the animal’s status during this period. The increase or decrease in one of these two categories (leisure vs professional) indicates the relative importance that chickens have for the French and the intensity of an agri-food industry. The creation of organisations is therefore interpreted as the value that a society places on an activity, the societal problems to be resolved. Their location would thus contribute to spatializing these transformations.
9These VCO are known as associations loi 1901 in reference to the year of the promulgation of law that gave greater freedom to the formation of groups of national citizens. The benefit of this type of organisation is that it is very easy to create: a simple declaration is made to the public authorities with the submission of the organisation’s new statutes. In addition to providing a framework, the voluntary and community organisation has a legal status that makes it eligible for financial aid, able to recruit staff and recognised as a public interest entity. The main tenet of this status is its non-profit nature: lucrative activities are prohibited, and any revenues must be reinvested in the activity designated by the voluntary and community organisation. The mission of these non-profit organisations is essentially based on social interaction or solidarity. This status is extremely widespread in France, as the country counted more than one million VCO in 2021 in which 15 million volunteers were active (or around 20% of the population of metropolitan France). These organisations have a multitude of different goals: sports and leisure activities, professional integration of people in difficulty, organisation of concerts, neighbourhood meetings and – more recently – the construction of chicken coops. The community sector can thus be viewed as an indicator of the place of chickens in our societies. This means understanding how the role of this animal has evolved in France and what this indicates about the spatial configuration of the country itself.
10The next section of this paper explores how the first modern initiatives emerged for biodiversity protection to save chicken breeds and thus contributed to improving the overall image of breeding. From the early 20th century until the mid-2000s, groups of poultry amateurs (type A) and professional farmers were behind the creation of most of the voluntary and community organisations. These two types are not necessarily opposed: in fact, they share the same desire to conform the animal to a model.
11In relation to chickens, the 19th century was marked by the emergence of Galliformes as a ‘beautiful’ animal. With the infatuation for exotic chickens on both sides of the Atlantic and the rediscovery of local breeds, the tradition of poultry farming was born (Burnham, 1855), and it is still just as alive today with the development of breed standards. The first breeder club was set up in France around 1850-1870, with these clubs continuing to develop throughout the 20th century in the United States and England, for example (Lacey, 2010). Beautiful animals must also be useful: the improvement of breeds also benefited new hens (known as Sussex or Rhode-Island), which helped to organize specialized poultry territories in the United-States (broiler belt; Lord, 1971) or in France (Houdan; Phlipponneau, 1948) at the very end of the 19th century.
12This part focuses on the presentation of the majority VCO forms in France until the beginning of the 2000s: groups promoting chicken industry and others supporting amateur breeding. In these two forms, the chicken is above all an animal that produces meat for professionals and pleasure for amateurs.
13In the 1970s and 1980s, it became evident that breeds were disappearing in France as the field of professional animal breeding became increasingly efficient. This trend had applied to all farm animals since the post-war years in France, as elsewhere, and had been marked by the massive standardisation of production systems with the intensification of agricultural practices and the reduction of animal biodiversity. The protection of breeds thus aimed to combine the preservation of animal biodiversity with the commercial development of quality chicken. At that time, chicken keeping was not coveted by the French population, as they were essentially perceived as ‘income-producing’ birds confined to rural and agricultural areas.
14Indeed, the keen interest shown in the animal was not limited to hobby chicken farming. The high consumption of chicken meat was particularly driven by its availability as an inexpensive source of protein. The protection of chickens and the consumption of their meat thus stayed the same for most of the 20th century until the 1990s.
15At the national level in the early 1980s, the concern for the preservation of breeds led to the funding and creation of regional conservatories for the protection of local breeds, which were organised under different forms and with various partners. It is probably no coincidence that eco-museums in regional natural parks and, more generally, local initiatives aiming to preserve the relationship between humans and the environment took up the issue of local animal breeds. According to Patricia Pellegrini, so-called local or hardy breeds that are well-adapted to the environment received special attention in the 1980s (2004). The mission set by the newly formed Federation of Eco-museums and Societal Museums in 1989 (Rolland-Villemot, 2020) was to create a dialogue between natural and cultural environments, between preservation and valorisation. A series of regional structures emerged in its wake such as the Eco-Museum of Rennes in 1987, the Conservatorium of Regional Biological Heritage of Midi-Pyrenees in 1989 (Flamant et al., 1989), the Conservatorium of Breeds of Aquitaine in 1991, the Conservatorium of Animal Races in Pays de la Loire (CRAPAL) in 1998 and so on.
16These initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s addressed the issue of the preservation of animal biodiversity. At the global level, the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted in Rio in 1992 allowed animal breeds to benefit from specific conservation programs with, for example, the creation of the French national cryopreservation bank for farm animal genetic resources (Dumont et al., 2016). In the European Union, the non-mandatory Agro-Environmental Measures developed in 1985 became part of the Common Agricultural Policy in 1992 and were then applied in France in 1993 via the local Agri-Environmental Programs, which notably aimed to protect threatened breeds (Pellegrini, 1995). The Sustainable Development Plans, which were part of the Agro-Environmental Measures, aimed to integrate environmental issues into farming systems by providing financial support to farmers.
17With these protection dynamics and the associated funding, breeders discovered a new mission that was visible to the general public. Nevertheless, given the long history of gastronomy in France, chickens were still viewed as a food source and as a show animal in the 1990s.
18As may be observed in figure 1 for the period stretching from 1950 to the late 1980s, the VCO may be grouped into two distinct categories involving amateurs (hobby farming group, i.e type A) and professionals (production group). The former organisations include amateur breeders, referred to by some authors as ‘sporting poultry farming’ to stress its dual character as both a competitive (i.e., winning a contest) and pleasurable (i.e., hobby) activity. The latter type of organisation, represented in a smaller proportion, involves groups of producers. The presence of farmers in the community sector may seem surprising at first glance, notably regarding its non-profit nature. However, in the majority of organisations involving professional poultry farmers, the purpose is to obtain quality certifications to promote their production, as high-quality poultry products in France are very often linked to a specific territory (Bérard, Marchenay, 2007; Delfosse, 2011).
Figure 2 Evolution of Voluntary and Community Organisations created between 1950 and 2010 about chickens
© Frederic Fortunel
19This graph shows the absolute value of each of the categories created to analyse VCOs. We can see three things: firstly, a continuous increase in the number of organisations created over the period, which testifies to the success of the associative phenomenon in France. Secondly, there has been a relative decline in the number of traditional breeders’ organisations (hobby farming) in favour of others that place the animal at the heart of their values. Finally, after the golden age of quality poultry products in the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of groups with a professional purpose now accounts for a quarter of the membership. Sources : République française, 2023, “Répertoire National des Associations” ; https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/repertoire-national-des-associations/
20From the 1990s, a whole range of initiatives began to flourish with the common goal to go beyond the mere conservation of breeds: to ensure the sustainability of a breed, it was necessary to give it a purpose, which often went hand in hand with economic viability. Numerous attempts were made to increase the value of breeds though their products but with mitigated success (Verrier, Markey, Lauvie, 2021). In terms of poultry, the French market is sensitive to quality issues, especially with red labels, protected geographical indications and two protected designations of origin. A series of new projects was thus launched, with, for instance, the revival of the Houdan chicken breed that was awarded a protected geographical indication in 1993. Many breeds were subsequently commercialised using these quality certifications, sometimes at the local level: the Géline de Touraine between 1988 and 2001 (Molard, Knauër, 2000), the Coucou de Rennes in 1997 (and the brand in 1998; Beaulieu, 2015), the Barbezieux in 1997 until the early 2000s (Aspoulba, 2022; Falquet, 2014), the Gournay in 1999 (Marguerie, 2002), the Marans in 2000s (Déprez, Herment, 2000), the Gasconne between 2000 and 2013 (Couzy, Markey, 2014) and the Gauloise Noire in 2022 (Douarin, 2022) – these are just some of the examples emerging in France with a return to local products, local food and animals identified from a specific territory.
21In the majority of the aforementioned cases, the initiatives were jointly developed by Chambers of Agriculture, clubs of hobby chicken farmers, not to mention eco-museums, guilds, vocational high schools, restaurants and distributors as well as professional breeders willing to invest in this adventure for a few years. To ‘revive’ the commodity chain, private structures such as the Béchanne Breeding Centre and public research organisations collaborated in order to evaluate the feasibility of projects. In an interview, an expert of the Géline de Touraine breed explained the problems of these initiatives, as confirmed in a 2006 report on the promotion of traditional chicken breeds (Tixier-Boichard et al., 2006): the price differential of this type of premium product does not compensate for the costs associated with the breed in which economies of scale and indices of consumption are crucial. As reported by this expert, ‘When you have a hatchery operator and a breeder only operating at half capacity and then the subsidies stop, the whole system is put in peril’. A similar observation was made in relation to Barbezieux chickens for which there were no more declared breeders in 2023 (Sautereau, 2023). The upmarket niche of these poultry products, combining the protection of a breed with the production of a chicken, has failed to achieve commercial success to date. As indicated by Michel Reffay, head of the Office for Genetic Resources in 1999, ‘evolving from a (passive) “museum breed” to an economically viable breed represents a real challenge’ (“Races de volailles anciennes : du conservatoire à la filière”, 1999). The Bresse chicken is an exception in this respect, notably on account of its recognised status since the 18th century along with an assertive international export strategy (Frossard-Urbano, 1990; Bérard, 2012).
Figure 3 Location of the Voluntary and Community Organisations concerning chicken production
© Frederic Fortunel
22These two maps illustrate the two different temporal dynamics about of poultry professional production: the first indicates the headquarters of poultry farming organisations, the second illustrates the concentration of livestock farms. While map 3a shows a widespread distribution of VCO along the Atlantic coast throughout the 20th century, the map 3b, containing information from the 2020 agricultural census, reveals a concentration in specifics regions, indicating a shift in poultry production hubs over time. This is clear in Bresse region, which is well known and represented in professional organisations but very weak in terms of production. Sources : Map 3a : République française, 2023. Map 3b: Agreste – Agricultural census 2020, https://agreste.agriculture.gouv.fr
23Although most of these breeding initiatives ended in failure, they proved interesting in several respects. Firstly, they showed how hobby chicken farmers, with an overarching concern for the preservation of breeds, seized upon the ‘conservation’ dimension and turned it into an argument for breeding. Beyond the winning of contests, this even became a form of gratification of a rather onerous hobby. Secondly, these initiatives demonstrated how different stakeholders were able to join forces: local authorities, public and private organizations, entrepreneurs and restaurateurs. Finally, they revived the poultry market in a different way by showing that ‘another approach is possible’. Indeed, at the time, France was one of the largest European poultry producers (around 30% of production in the European Union between 1960 and 1980), even setting up units of production as far away as Brazil in order to provide frozen chickens to the Middle East (Coloma, 2008; Piel, 2012).
24The community sector in France is structured around two contrasting poultry approaches – professional versus hobby farming – as illustrated by the spatialisation of community organisations at the national scale. On the one hand, the west coast of France with Brittany and more broadly the south-west region of Nouvelle Aquitaine had epitomised the structure of the agro-industrial sector since the 1950s. This observation is still relevant today, as the departments with the largest flocks are situated on the Atlantic coast: the regions of Brittany and Pays de la Loire represented 73% of laying hens and chickens farmed in 2020 (Ministère de l’Agriculture et de l’alimentation, 2020). In line with this trend, the largest proportion of voluntary and community organisations relating to production are in this area (figure 3).
25On the other hand, the France of hobby chicken farming dates back much further. Its embedded presence in the north-east of the country may be linked to the medieval tradition of hobby farming with Germanic and Flemish birds (Haffer, 2008; Santens, 2018). At the time of the industrial revolution, working-class areas in the vast cross-border zone encompassing France, Belgium and Germany became the melting pot for the breeding of pigeons, roosters and finches (Cegarra, 1992; De Oliveira Pinto, 2020; La Basse-cour du Nord, 2008). To this explanatory cultural factor, we may add the localisation of French chicken breeds (figure 4), likewise located in the north-east quarter of the country. This overlap is unsurprising given that the voluntary and community organisations of hobby chicken farmers were behind the establishment of breed standards (Fédération Française des Associations d’éleveurs de gallinacés et de palmipèdes, 2015).
Figure 4 Location of the Voluntary and Community Organisations concerning hobby chicken breeding (type A)
© Frederic Fortunel
26Given the longevity of traditional amateur breeders’ organisations, maps 4a and 4b are quite similar. The geographical origins of chicken breeds registered in the national breed standard closely correspond to those of the groups responsible for their preservation. It is therefore in this large northern part of the country that most of these groups are found. Sources: Map 4a: République française, 2023. Map 4b: Fédération Française des Associations d’Éleveurs de Gallinacés et de Palmipèdes, 2015.
27From the 2000s, a new paradigm about the animal appears: it is no longer only an animal to be admired and eaten but also an animal to be protected, to be respected under the effect of social changes. Authors like Singer (1975) inspire generations of people and reshape the way animals are viewed. Veganism and animal activism contribute to profoundly changing the (social and spatial) place of animals. Therefore, the hen takes on a new mission: contributing to the ecological transition. In this way, hen is not only a layer, but it’s also a recycler. It makes the link between food systems and environment protection. While most of the population is urban, new ways of having a chicken are being (re)invented: in the backyards, the animal is assigned new functions. The result is the birth of a new form of amateur poultry farmer (type B).
28The issues of urban nature and food autonomy are addressed in France through two distinct approaches: participation in the initiatives of local authorities and engagement in citizen groups adopting an urban agriculture-centred approach. With the first approach, municipalities distribute spent hens to individuals for the sustainable management of household organic waste. With the trend spreading to other social groups and information networks, individual households seeking to keep chickens in their gardens may, for example, purchase them from commercial pet shops. With the second approach, voluntary and community organisations establish community gardens – a collective project in a common space – or allotments – collective land belonging to a municipality but divided into individual plots. These two types of gardens are not exclusive but hybrid depending on the local situation. The following two subsections will examine these approaches.
29In the early 2000s, the Home Composting Support Scheme was developed in France (Schwartz, 2012). As part of legislative reform, this scheme was widely supported by the population, as it reduced the fiscal pressure on households following the creation of new taxes for waste treatment in addition to waste removal and storage at landfills (Cubaynes, 2019).
30In many areas, including the smallest municipalities and intermunicipal bodies, discussions ensued about the practical ways to reduce household waste in response to the now mandatory and onerous waste recycling; inhabitants also became concerned about waste management. In 2015, the Law on the Energy Transition for Green Growth adopted a decentralised approach – i.e., an individual or ‘local’ approach – as a relevant solution for sorting biowaste at the source and an alternative to the previous approach based on post-collection treatment infrastructure (Bailly, Barbier, Daniel, 2022). The individual, the consumer and the household were finally recognised as stakeholders in waste management and not merely as service payers.
31The narrative is well rehearsed and endlessly repeated, widely covered by the local and national media (Bardou, 2018): chickens are an eco-friendly gesture, produce food benefits and save money. The ‘having’ aspect is stressed: having eggs to collect and eggs to eat, having hens to feed and a new chicken coop to set up. And, of course, a reduction of 150 kilos of annual household organic waste!
32The chicken-related initiatives follow two main approaches: the installation of a collective chicken coop in the municipality or the distribution of chickens and/or individual chicken coops like the subsidised composts set up in backyards. Many municipalities, from the largest to the smallest, have initiated such projects.
33The small rural village of Pincé in the department of the Sarthe pioneered these grassroots initiatives in 2012, serving as an example for many other municipalities throughout the country. Aided by a group of local producers, the local municipal council distributed two chickens to around sixty households for the purpose of waste reduction. This initiative, which received wide media coverage, was also adopted at the same time in Belgium (Cellule environnement Mouscron, 2016). This small village with less than 200 inhabitants received letters from all over the country asking for a guide to copy the approach. The early 2010s thus marked the emergence of chickens as a ‘new’ tool for domestic recycling. Local authorities, large and small alike, promoted the use of composts, provided laying hens free of charge or subsidised the purchase of a chicken coop for ‘recycling’ chickens. A survey conducted during a distribution operation in the agglomeration of Blois identified the profile of individuals wanting to keep chickens: they were generally young couples who had recently purchased a house and had little experience with raising chickens. The distribution policies thus encouraged households to engage in domestic poultry farming, especially with the free advice given by the local authorities in relation to the animals and waste management (Glatron, Philippot, Belland, 2017).
34Added to this individual approach is a collective mode of chicken rearing marked by social interactions, especially in the small rural municipalities. Chicken coops have thus been set up as part of school projects, social support for the elderly, school holiday clubs, working-class neighbourhoods, or simply to enliven the village. These community chicken coops can also obtain subventions from government bodies. In rural areas, they often have an identical functioning: the local municipality lends the land and funds the installation of the chicken coop and the chickens; willing households then contribute food scraps and collect the eggs.
35With the proliferation of community chicken coops, including in the midst of the avian influenza crisis, intergenerational encounters are promoted, with the young and old alike gathering in this metaphorical farmyard and reviving this imaginary scene of village life. As is often the case, the local workforce becomes involved: the carpenter provides the wooden planks, the local shop provides the fencing and out of nothing, the chicken coop is built. With no need for sophisticated concepts or theories and very few formal structures, only good will is needed. The values thus promoted are based on social consensus and community living, which may be observed in the community chicken coops as well as the individual distributions. The weathercocks traditionally added to the roofs of French churches symbolise this social consensus, making chickens the vector and symbol of this grassroots France. In these individual or collective configurations, very few voluntary and community organisations are declared for the simple reason that the municipality is often the direct or indirect organiser of the projects.
36These municipal-led initiatives embody only part of the French people’s love for chickens: fashion magazines and newspapers also promote red hens by stressing their dual character as both useful and ‘cute’. In French common language, many hypocoristic expressions refer to chickens to designate a loved one (ma poule, ‘my hen’) or to mock a boastful attitude (fier comme un coq, ‘proud as a rooster’). Let us not forget that Galliformes are also an emblem of the French Republic, especially visible on sports logos. In the 2010s, utility, affinity and tradition contributed to the exceptional sales growth of these ‘farmyard animals’, exceeding 10% annually (Promojardin-Promanimal, 2022).
37On the margins of these groups often active in rural areas, other movements emerged with an objective geared more towards urban autonomy. The hen becomes a being to be respected and protected for its individuality, not for its breed. The breed is secondary since most animals are standardized. The chicken is a symbol, an argument for initiating a transition in society (Dumat et al., 2018). We move from the world of the barnyard to the backyard.
38As perfectly analysed by Daniel Cérézuelle, the motivation for raising chickens in American backyards is a ‘centrifugal logic of community organisation aimed at reconquering the food autonomy of the territory while changing the food habits of local households, regardless of whether or not they are gardeners. In France, it is rather a ‘centripetal logic of socio-cultural activities aimed at supporting a group of gardeners comprised of different types of inhabitants’ (Cérézuelle, 2020). The main objective in France is thus centered on the satisfaction of individual households that come together for the project. Citizen participation initiatives for the creation of community gardens, the distribution of chickens and local food movements are far less developed in France than in the United States (Cooking Up a Story, 2009). For example, the ‘coop tours’ organised on the other side of the Atlantic are almost non-existent in France, as no one would see the value of visiting private gardens designed to be hidden from prying eyes.
39For the period 1907-2021, 29.5% of all voluntary and community organisations mentioning chickens as part of their activities focus broadly on ecology. This proportion increases to 52% in the 2010s (160 out of 303 voluntary and community organisations), rising to a staggering 70% in 2020-2021! Most of these voluntary and community organisations did not exist in the 1980s, appearing only since the 1990s as shown in figure 1. Far from being homogenous, these ecological organisations encompass a range of diverse activities: environmental movements (35%; 79/228), pro- and anti-chicken coop groups (28%; 63), educational farms (15%; 34), chicken rescuers (17%; 39) and healthcare for people (6%; 13).
40For the organisations relating to the environmental movement, the animals are frequently a pretext for other activities. As part of a broader environmental preoccupation, chickens are not necessarily the focus of the targeted action. They are rather cited in a list of diverse activities such as beekeeping, gardening and a specific type of agricultural production. In general, the themes of agriculture and ecology are intrinsically interconnected. These environment-related organisations thus focus on agricultural issues (34%), gardens (community gardens for the most part; 27.5%), ecology in general (22.5%) and support for specific populations (2%).
41Only three types of voluntary and community organisations relating to the socio-ecological transition share a real interest in chickens: the pro-chicken coop groups (41), the anti-chicken coop groups (22) and the chicken rescue organisations (39). These constitute around 100 organisations mainly centred on Galliformes, that is, 34% of the total sample relating to the socio-ecological transition.
42This relative low importance of the animal must be interpreted by its symbolic dimension: it represents both a peasant past and a greener future. The chicken has become one tool among others to succeed in the socio-ecological transition (Dumat et al., 2018).
Figure 5 Location of the Voluntary and Community Organisations regarding environmental issues (type B)
© Frederic Fortunel
43The socio-ecological transition VCO’s in France differ from the other two groups (figures 3 & 4). To understand its geography, we can draw an analogy with Preservation local farming organisations which are more densely concentrated in the south-west and north-east. This similarity in location (except for the Île-de-France region) can be explained by complementary perceptions that converge on the preservation of resources. Sources : Map 5a : République française, 2023. Map 5b : https://www.greenecho.fr/blog/la-repartition-geographique-des-amap-en-france/
44The voluntary and community organisations that rescue spent hens (‘rehoming’ in English; Oliver, 2020, 2021a) represent a new type of animal refuge: they only act as intermediaries between farmers seeking to offload their stock of aging animals and individuals wanting to acquire laying hens at a cost around 10 times less than in commercial pet shops. These organisations, most of which emerged in the early 2020s, play on people’s compassion and empathy for animals. In addition to reducing the purchasing costs and facilitating recycling in the garden, the chicken ‘rescuers’ make a gesture by saving the animals from the abattoir. This type of intermediation is interesting, as the targeted public engages in a good deed, although the utility of the purchase is frequently underscored: the sociological profile of the ‘customers’ reveals that they tend to be aged around 50 years, with a long experience of raising chickens and a utilitarian approach in which the economic savings associated with the eggs are non-negligible.
45Utility and empathy for the animals are thus not incompatible. The moral dimension of rehoming hens echoes the emergence of anti-speciesist and vegan movements in France in the 2000s (Carrié, Doré, Michalon, 2023). L214, created in 2008 and named after article L214 of the French civil code that protects animals from mistreatment, is incontestably the modern form of animal compassion but with the political struggle for animal liberation. L214 does not organise chicken rescues itself but rather provides a broader philosophical and political framework. Known to the general public through their shocking videos filmed inside abattoirs or in the cages of laying hens and widely publicised in social media, this organisation is part of the unique history of French animal rights influenced by anarchism (Dubreuil, 2013).
46The voluntary and community organisations relating to the socio-ecological transition have a mixed geography (maps 5 of figure 5). Two similar trends emerge but in different social contexts. South-east France not only features the largest number of socio-ecological organisations relative to the number of inhabitants (Bazin et al., 2022) but also has a high level of ecological awareness. For example, the French Green Party obtained the highest scores in this region during the 2009 European elections (Colange, Bussi, Gosset, 2009). Compared with the rest of the country (except for the capital region), this area has significantly more Organisations for the Preservation of Local Farming (Association pour le Maintien d’une Agriculture Paysanne) (MIRAMAP, s. d.) as shown in map 5b. These organisations are a collective of consumer-citizens wishing to buy their products directly from local farmers and driven by a desire to promote ‘greener’ agriculture. Only 6 organisations (out of 230 in the socio-ecological transition category) claim to be AMAPs.
47The different facets of France expressed through the community sector over more than a century illustrate the societal evolutions that have taken place in relation to chickens. Indeed, Galliformes were regarded as an ‘admirable’ animal in a contest held at a poultry show in the 19th century and the same may still be said of the bird today (i.e., the ‘front yard’). Since the early 20th century, they have also been perceived as a ‘useful’ animal, which remains just as relevant as ever considering that chicken is one of the more consumed meats (i.e., the ‘farmyard’). Only from the 2000s and especially the 2010s onwards have new types of humanimal relationship emerged, which were analysed here as part of the socio-ecological transition (i.e., the ‘backyard’).
48To conclude, this article draws attention to three main characteristics of contemporary chickens. At a time when do-it-yourself activities are thriving, chickens may be seen as a low-tech tool that requires minimal investment in terms of time and money: for less than 50€, anyone, without any prior experience, can keep a hen. Far from the injunctions to do more with less, chickens represent bottom-up ecology that is both productive and non-punitive.
49Chickens are part of the daily life of French households. Yet, by their very simplicity, they prove that it is easy to be independent and save money, by oneself and for oneself. This new trend thus facilitates the rebuilding of the microcosm of the local farmyard, lost over the generations but remaining in the collective unconscious as a marker of the place of chickens. The current backyard of chicken keepers is a euphemised and ‘relaxed’ form of the farmyard, far removed from the formality of breeders and the obligations of farmers. This symbol of our peasant origins makes chickens one of the preferred animals of the ‘general public’, though it remains an unusual choice, as contemporary urban living has been built around the absence of animals in the city. Their return at the bottom of our gardens, embedded within the private sphere of domestic life, makes chickens a commensal animal (Riguelle, 2023) and human companion. The place of animals has expanded into the sphere of humans in an urban world: it is a diffusion of the ambivalences that the animal carries itself. The evolution of the goals of the VCO founded in the 1980s until today bears witness to its changing status. The 1990s were marked by the desire to economically revive breeds and to return to a genetic biodiversity in decline. The 2010s are a turning point as far as replacing the old practices of breeders: today’s enthusiasts are in love with new forms of naturalness and consideration of animal well-being. The initial hypothesis that the objectives of organisations are an indicator of the evolution of the status of the animal is partly verified. We note a significant diversification of the objectives of the organisations as well as a strong increase in their number: while during the 1980s only 75 were created, in the 2010s, there were 300. This broadening of themes associated with the increase in their number validates the idea that the chicken is part of evolving social representations. However, the chicken is still considered in its domestic universe: 21st century society does not seem ready to consider the chicken as a wild animal.
50Finally, ecological preoccupations combined with animal welfare make chickens an ethical choice. This final point is variously expressed through food (veganism), animal rights (campaigning for animal welfare or liberation) or living in simplicity (recycling, independent egg supply). Through chickens, people can thus express and project their own convictions. They are thus the subject of consensus and can even be used to gain virtue, especially by saving an animal from the abattoir and keeping it in production.