French police baffled by violent attacks on horses

Horse owners in France are living in fear following a nationwide outbreak of gruesome mutilating attacks on horses, ponies and donkeys across the country.

So far this year the authorities have recorded at least 30 attacks, starting in February and continuing up until as recently as last week.

Currently the motive is unclear, but the attacker or attackers seem to have an anatomical understanding of the animals from the way they attack them. Police say they believe groups of people are involved, because trying to control an alarmed horse is so difficult.

In many cases, an ear has been removed, similar to the way matadors cut one from the body of a killed bull, but there have also been acts of even greater violence, including the removal of bone parts, or damage to the eyes, but never the removal of meat for eating.

The country's Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie has promised strong action to find the culprits and bring the string of attacks to an end. "All means are in motion to end this terror," he tweeted.

According to French law, those found guilty of "acts of cruelty or mistreatment of an animal" could be sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros ($35,441).

Serge Lecomte, president of the French Equestrian Federation, called the attacks "cruel savagery of a kind we have rarely seen before", adding "Is it a cult? Cruelty towards animals is the precursor to cruelty towards humans."

Last week, for the first time, two attackers were disturbed during an incident at a horse riding center in the Burgundy region.

Center chief Nicolas Demajean was alerted to intruders by the noise of his pigs squealing, and went out to confront two individuals, one of whom was attacking two ponies, while the other attacked him with a pruning knife.

A helicopter and 40 police officers were deployed to try and capture the attackers, who Demajean said were speaking a language he could not understand, but they escaped. The animals are recovering from their injuries but are reported to be traumatised.

"We do not understand the motivation," a Paris police spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency."Is it a satanic rite, insurance fraud, some macabre trophy hunt, or an Internet challenge? We don't know. It is very traumatizing."

It is not the first time such incidents have been reported in Europe. In the 1980s there was an outbreak of attacks on horses in the United Kingdom, and more recently between 2014 and 2016 there were similar incidents in Belgium and Germany.