France’s highest court is to decide whether to give two allegedly tuberculosis-infected elephants a stay of execution, reports RFI.
The government has already given them a second 40-day period of grace for tests after Princess Stéphanie of Monaco and Brigitte Bardot joined a public outcry against plans to put them down.
The Conseil d’Etat (Council of State) is to discuss an appeal by the elephants’ formal owners, the Pinder circus, to suspend the order to kill the elephants, Baby and Nepal, who have lived in a zoo in Lyon, central France, since the circus handed them over to its care 10 years ago.
A public outcry, stoked by former film star and current animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot, led to the granting of a 40-day stay of execution, which ran out on Sunday.
Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll announced a further 40 day suspension and revealed that he had discussed the case with Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, who has joined the campaign to save the pachyderms, earlier last week.
On 14 January President François Hollande asked Le Foll to take a new look at the diagnoses already made.
In 2010 several tests found Baby positive for TB but only one did so for Nepal, leading them to be kept away from the public.
Read more of this report from RFI.