Who is slaying France's rugby roosters?
The Local France - [email protected]
Published: 28 Jan, 2015 CET.
Updated: Wed 28 Jan 2015 17:52 CET
A distraught farmer has been left scratching her head after over thirty of her famous roosters have been "murdered" in the last month. The farmers' 'coqs' are known for making appearances during French international rugby matches.
Mado Delpech, an 85-year-old farmer in France, has been left baffled and upset after she found 35 of her roosters decapitated within the space of a month. Several papers in the French media have raised the possibility of foul play, but Delpech is not so sure. "I'm not sure that it's a human... they'd be stupid to kill them like this and not take the bodies with them," she told French site Europe 1, adding that it could be a weasel sneaking around her property during the nights. The reason the case has made headlines in newspapers across France is that some of Delpech's cockerels had been international stars in their own right. Over the years she has travelled all round Europe to watch the national rugby side, 'Le XV de France', sometimes releasing her roosters onto the field at grounds including Twickenham and Lansdowne Road, reported French newspaper La Depeche. Roosters on the pitch is something of a tradition in French rugby (see video below), given that the side's emblem is a golden Gallic rooster, known as a 'coq gaulois' in French. She even named the roosters after her favourite players, with one called Spanghero after Walter Spanghero, a star of the French national team in the sixties and seventies. One of the roosters descendants was among those to be killed in the last month. "He was big. He was beautiful. And now he's been killed," the woman lamented. Police have launched an investigation but have so far failed to solve the riddle of the slain roosters.
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Mado Delpech, an 85-year-old farmer in France, has been left baffled and upset after she found 35 of her roosters decapitated within the space of a month.
Several papers in the French media have raised the possibility of foul play, but Delpech is not so sure.
"I'm not sure that it's a human... they'd be stupid to kill them like this and not take the bodies with them," she told French site Europe 1, adding that it could be a weasel sneaking around her property during the nights.
The reason the case has made headlines in newspapers across France is that some of Delpech's cockerels had been international stars in their own right.
Over the years she has travelled all round Europe to watch the national rugby side, 'Le XV de France', sometimes releasing her roosters onto the field at grounds including Twickenham and Lansdowne Road, reported French newspaper La Depeche.
Roosters on the pitch is something of a tradition in French rugby (see video below), given that the side's emblem is a golden Gallic rooster, known as a 'coq gaulois' in French.
She even named the roosters after her favourite players, with one called Spanghero after Walter Spanghero, a star of the French national team in the sixties and seventies.
One of the roosters descendants was among those to be killed in the last month. "He was big. He was beautiful. And now he's been killed," the woman lamented.
Police have launched an investigation but have so far failed to solve the riddle of the slain roosters.
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