Morgan Keane, 25, was hit in the chest while cutting wood outside his home in a village north of Toulouse, in southwest France, two years ago. The hunter, Julien Féral, 35, had only obtained his hunting license six months before the tragedy and admitted he did not know the area. Laurent Lapergue, 51, who organized the hunt, is also on trial for manslaughter. The case has fueled calls for a crackdown on hunting safety and growing anger at the perceived impunity of France’s powerful hunting lobby, which has the backing of Emmanuel Macron. Since Keane’s murder, two other civilians have been shot by hunters. Keane’s death sparked a social media campaign by his friends called ‘One Day, One Hunter’, which led to a petition signed by more than 100,000 people. A subsequent parliamentary inquiry led to a 140-page report published in September which recommended, among other safety measures, that hunters be banned from drinking alcohol, but rejected calls from campaigners to ban hunting on Sundays and Wednesdays when many children are not they have school Members of the National Federation of Hunters (FNC) rejected the Senate’s proposals and reacted angrily, saying they were being “stigmatised” and caricatured. The indictment states that Keane was cutting wood on his private land at a place called Garrigues near Calvignac at about 4.30pm. when Féral, “believing he was shooting a boar,” fatally struck it from 75 yards with a Remington pump. action rifle. Feral, who had a valid gun license and a recent hunting license, told police he had been hunting with his brother-in-law but did not know the area or which parts of it were private. He said he was standing in a field where he saw “no cars, no houses, no people,” heard a screech and spotted a boar, which turned and ran into the wood. When he spotted movement nearby, he said he fired again assuming it was the boar. Keane and his brother Rowan lived alone in the property after their parents died. Their mother was French and the brothers were born and raised in France. The indictment said Keane’s late father Michael, whose nationality was listed as British when he died in July 2019, had clashed with local hunters two years earlier, accusing them of coming too close to his land. Lapergue admitted that Féral was inexperienced in boar hunting and did not know the area, but denied any responsibility for the killing. He was charged with manslaughter for allegedly failing to provide adequate safety instructions before the hunt, which he denies. He also dismissed investigators’ findings that the hunt was “totally disorganized” and “inherently dangerous.” Maître Benoît Coussy, Rowan Keane’s lawyer, called for tougher penalties for irresponsible hunters. “The term ‘accident’ has been used incorrectly since the beginning of this case and seems to me inappropriate because it refers to what could be called an excuse for the hunt,” Cousy told French reporters. “It’s time to create a hunting crime with heavier and more deterrent penalties.” Official figures show that during the 2020-21 hunting season there were 80 shooting accidents, seven of them fatal. Last year there were 90 accidents, eight of which resulted in death. An estimated 150 people are injured in hunting accidents each year. Most of the victims are bystanders, but in February a 25-year-old woman hiking a marked trail with a friend in the Cantal region was shot dead. In October 2021, a 67-year-old driver was killed after being hit in the neck by a hunter’s bullet while driving on a dual carriageway from Rennes to Nantes. In 2017, a 69-year-old woman was killed when a hunter shot over her garden fence, claiming to have seen a deer. The following year, a 24-year-old hunter killed Welsh restaurant owner Marc Sutton, 34, while he was out on his mountain bike in Haute-Savoie where he lived. The hunter was sentenced to four years in prison, three of which were suspended. Three other hunters and the wife of one defendant were given suspended sentences for tampering with evidence. Subscribe to This is Europe The most central stories and debates about Europeans – from identity to the economy to the environment Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The shooting of innocent civilians, some on their private property, has raised questions about how the French countryside is shared. The FNC, which represents 800,000 licensed hunters, dismissed the Sénat report as “a mille-feuille of restrictions” that were “not appropriate or realistic”. The federation’s chairman, Willy Schraen, a more senior figure who has the ear of the president, sparked outrage in June after suggesting that backcountry residents and activists who feared local hunters should stay indoors. “They should just walk home and they won’t have a problem…you can always get hit by a stray bullet, but don’t worry, you’re more likely to be killed by an assassin in France than a hunter.” he told BFMTV. However, Schraen said that in the case of Keane’s murder it appeared that “the ground rules were not followed”. “If somebody’s shooting, you have to know what you’re shooting at,” Schraen said. Around 90 species can be hunted in France, although time and number restrictions apply. The country has 1,313,000 hunters, according to the FédérationNationale des Chasseurs, and hunting is the third most popular sport, after football and fishing. The trial, which is expected to last one day, begins on Thursday in Cahors. Féral and Lapergue face up to three years in prison and a €75,000 fine each, as well as a five-year firearms ban or permanent withdrawal of their hunting license if convicted.
