Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

France Leads Europe In Hunting, Newspaper Says

Hunters gather prior to a wild boar hunt in Pietrosella, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, in August.
Pascal Pochard Casabianca
/
AFP/Getty Images
Hunters gather prior to a wild boar hunt in Pietrosella, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, in August.

French sports fans are known for their love of soccer. But according to Le Figaro, the country's "second sport" is hunting. The newspaper cites the National Federation of Hunters, which says that among all European countries, France has the most hunters.

The data are based on the number of registered practitioners of a sport. Soccer has more than 2 million, while hunting had 1.2 million license holders for the 2011-2012 season, Le Figaro reports.

As in much of the United States, the end of summer brings the arrival of hunting seasons for game in France, from birds to boars. The new hunting season is well under way in many French regions.

According to France's National Federation of Hunters, the sport's popularity also brings risks — there were 21 fatal hunting accidents in France during the one-year period that ended on May 31, 2013. That's out of a total of 179 mishaps.

We glanced at the comments on the Figarostory to see if any readers protested its claims — perhaps with an eye to defending rugby or auto racing. But many comments simply stated a belief that hunting isn't a sport, while others defended it.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bill Chappell is a writer and editor on the News Desk in the heart of NPR's newsroom in Washington, D.C.
More Stories