It is a property that matters enormously to Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who evokes a “utopia that came true”with the Parisianin its edition of January 6, 2025. A residence located in the Millière valley, Les Mesnuls, near Rambouilletin Yvelines. A place where deer and does “understood that they were at home here”as explained by the one we saw opposite Stéphane Rotenberg for the GoodPlanet foundation a few years ago.
A true paradise on earth for the 78-year-old French environmental activist, who saw his peace disrupted on December 7 “when six hunting dogs with hounds” allowed themselves to return to one’s property. A natural area of nearly 30 hectares “which has hosted for four years the rewilding project carried out by the Vallée de la Millière association, of which Yann Arthus-Bertrand is the founding president”. The one we saw hilarious at the Vendanges de Montmartre with Anne Hidalgo in 2019 did not hesitate to file a complaint against the Bonnelles-Rambouillet crew, owner of the dogs who entered his home without his permission.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand wants a definitive end to hound hunting in Rambouillet
Very committed to ecology and animal protection, Yann Arthus-Bertrand also launched a petition with two demands: “strict respect for private property” as well as the implementation “an exit plan for the definitive end to hunting with hounds by 2030 in the Rambouillet forest”. A petition which has already collected nearly 25 000 signatures according to our colleagues from Parisian. If he says he doesn’t want “come off as a stupid and mean anti-hunter”the photographer who we saw admiring a powerful and rare work alongside Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière a few months ago, he nevertheless finds that hunting with hounds is a “archaic and uncontrollable practice”, that he sees as “a leisure activity for an elite and not a necessary practice of regulation”.
Obviously, Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s fight is being emulated almost everywhere. “I’m starting to receive phone calls from all over France. People are interested in my project. Many don’t even know that you can say no”concludes the famous photographer.
