The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Last horse butcher in Paris at end of his tether
More than half a century ago, when Jacques Leban started out, he was one of 300. Now he stands alone
Standing behind the counter in a blue and white checked shirt and white apron, Jacques Leban wields his meat cleaver with precision as he serves an ageing customer a choice cut.
A twinkle in his eye, he looks, as one commentator put it, like a timeless Parisian character straight out of the film
In fact, Mr Leban is the French capital’s last remaining horse butcher and his establishment is on its last legs.
“You can find horse meat in markets sometimes but I’m the capital’s last horse butcher,” says Mr Leban, a “cheval extra” label behind him beside rows of red wine.
For more than half a century, Mr Leban has served his faithful clientele with everything from horse entrecôte to cervelas (sausage) in his shop in the Rue Cambronne, in western Paris. A wooden horse’s head, which is lit by pink neon at night, makes his shopfront hard to miss.
When Mr Leban started, the French capital could boast of 300
Now there is only one and at 80, its owner is, quite frankly, knackered. “I’ve had it. I’m all on my own,” he says.
“I get treated like an assassin because I sell horse meat,” exclaims Mr Leban, who says he will soon retire without a successor. The butcher has in recent years endured insults, threats and had fake blood smeared on his shop by animal rights activists.
Once seen as a lean and healthy alternative to beef, pork and lamb, horse meat has fallen out of favour with the younger generation, many of whom see eating such four-legged friends as beyond the pale, amid a rise in animal welfare considerations and vegetarianism.
Mr Leban’s lone Parisian rival,
Davin, a family business in the 14th arrondissement and the capital’s biggest, has just sold up and shipped out. They took their three wooden horse busts with them. The new owner has no regrets about ditching horse meat. “Horse is over. Mentalities have changed,” he told
Mr Leban can still remember when horse meat was all the rage. “Forty years ago there were four horse butchers in our neighbourhood alone. Back then, I had four horses delivered every week. Now it’s just one and a bit,” he says. As for the clientele, “fewer customers are buying horse meat. It’s mainly the elderly,” he confesses.
They are a faithful bunch, with regulars praising his professionalism and the quality of the lean meat.
One customer even swore it helped reduce their cholesterol and fortifies those with anaemia. The food guide calls Mr Leban “a horse pro and a sure bet”.
However, the times have changed, according to unequivocal figures from France’s ministry of agriculture. In 2013, the French slaughtered some 20,000 horses for meat. Last year, that humber had dropped to just 3,882.
According to Stéphane Lajoie, the president of the French National Horse Syndicate, “by 2021, there were only 250 horse butchers in the whole of France”. In Paris, the abattoirs that used to supply horse butchers have all disappeared.
In a wider trend, the capital has lost a third of its butchers of all kinds in the past 20 years, according to Apur, the Parisian urban planning agency. The factors in this include butchers retiring and finding no takers, competition from the supermarkets and the impact of mad cow disease.
Horse butchers, for their part, have been hit by a string of scandals, including one in which horse meat was notoriously passed off as beef.
Controversy over the status of horses as pets has also reared its head, with campaigns notably led by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.
“There is a growing awareness of the ‘I’ve had it. I’m all on my own. I get treated like an assassin because
I sell horse meat’ quantities of greenhouse gases.”
Nonetheless, there has been a political backlash against butcher bashing in France of late. In early December, a new Rural Alliance began its campaign for next year’s European elections by blasting the “anti-human extremism” of animal rights activists and ecologists.
“If things go on like this, will [fishermen] be able to put an earthworm on their hook,” asked leader Willy Schraen. “Will we be able to grill a rib steak? Will we be able to ride a horse, hunt or make a fire in the hearth? I am not so sure.”
Fabien Roussel, the communists’ leader, recently saw his popularity soar after he called for an end to guilttripping the French working classes over what they eat after one Green MP said barbecues were for “machos” and bad for the planet.
Despite his detractors, Mr Leban is soldiering on for now.
However, when he does finally hang up his butcher’s apron, one thing’s for sure: like his retired rival, he will be taking his wooden horse bust with him. “I certainly won’t be leaving it here,” he said.