'More than just meat', says French woman living with pigs as pets

Record ID: 1985031

  • Title: 'More than just meat', says French woman living with pigs as pets
  • Date: 24th March 2025
  • Summary: GUINGAMP, FRANCE (MARCH 18, 2025) (REUTERS) UNIVERSITY LABORATORY TECHNICIAN, MANON RAULT, CROUCHING ON FLOOR OF HER HOUSE WITH PET PIGS GUSTAVE (LEFT) AND LEON (RIGHT) NEARBY RAULT CARESSING GUSTAVE LEON STANDING BESIDE RAULT RAULT CROUCHING NEAR PET PIGS RAULT SCRATCHING GUSTAVE RAULT RAULT SCRATCHING LEON'S BELLY (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIVERSITY LABORATORY TECHNICIAN AND
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: France agriculture pets pigs
  • Location: GUINGAMP, FRANCE
  • City: GUINGAMP, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
  • Reuters ID: LVA001038620032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: It was love at first sight when Manon Rault met Gustave, an abandoned piglet taken in by her neighbours when she was living in Montreal in 2018.
    Rault, 32, ended up adopting Gustave, flew him back to France and has since adopted a second pig, named Leon, who now also lives inside her home. She also has four outdoor pet pigs living in her backyard.
    Adopting the pigs is a way of encouraging people to change their view of pigs as animals for human consumption.
    "Every person who has met Gustave has had a moment of realisation that it (a pig) is a very interesting animal," Rault said. "I would like people to see a pig as more than just an animal used for its meat."
    In Rault's home in the western French town of Guingamp, where no food products of animal origin are consumed, Gustave, aged 6, and Leon, 1, are treated as one would treat a cat or a dog. She feeds them, bathes them, takes them for walks in nearby countryside paths, gives them toys including a miniature piano and has even trained them to sit, shake and turn around.
    Gustave, of the Gottingen race, also regularly visits the workplace of Rault, who is employed as a laboratory technician at the local university. Her desk is decorated with pig decorations of all colours and pictures and drawings of her pets.
    She said this allows her pets to become less wary of other humans, as pigs usually have a reaction of fear being prey animals.
    The usual sight of the animal delights her colleagues, who say the work environment has become more relaxing.
    "It's always such joy to see him, he's really the mascot here now," said Rault's colleague Anne-Lise Le Floch. "And he's so cute, too, and so it's always a pleasure."
    (Production: Ardee Napolitano)
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