The Orléans prosecutor requested a 5-year suspended prison sentence for Olivier Bouygues, tried for destruction of protected species this Tuesday, September 8 at the Orléans criminal court. She also requested the conviction of the billionaire's five co-defendants, employed on his Fontenaille estate in Sologne.
Convictions for everyone. This is what the public prosecutor demanded in its requisitions, on the second and last day of the trial of Olivier Bouygues and five of his employees. They are on trial, this Monday, September 7 and Tuesday, September 9, for unlawful interference by an organized group with the conservation of protected species on the Fontenaille estate, the billionaire's 600-hectare property in Loire.
Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren, public prosecutor of Orléans, herself led the prosecution, and asked the court to impose on Olivier Bouygues a 5-year prison sentence with a simple suspended sentence, and a fine of 750,000 euros. Or the maximum sum “in view of the financial situation of the defendant”. He is also prohibited from any agricultural or livestock practices for 5 years.
For the five employees, current or former game wardens and managers, it requires sentences ranging from one to four years in prison, and various fines. The defendants are also accused of breeding wild boars without authorization, and for some, hunting outside opening periods, trapping and the use of prohibited traps, or even possession of weapons without authorization.
“Trust does not exclude control”
Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren began her presentation by highlighting the abundance of "material evidence" collected during the search on the Fontenaille estate, belonging to Olivier Bouygues, on June 4, 2025. A mass grave "with carcasses or remains of protected species", a hunting book "and bounty sheets mentioning protected species", or even an inventory of protected animals killed over a year. She evokes "a system of destruction, elimination and incentive", aimed at "preserving hunting parties regularly organized on the estate by removing small game predators".
The magistrate noted that five of the six defendants admitted, during their custody in the summer of 2025, to having destroyed protected species. That the manager and game wardens admitted to having been paid to kill pests, including protected species (gray herons, common buzzards, great cormorants, forest cats, hedgehogs, etc.). But she also underlines that the defendants have backed down on the involvement of Olivier Bouygues for a year. The billionaire is the only one to deny any participation or knowledge of the facts judged. For one of the defendants, "Olivier Bouygues is completely informed of the practices", according to statements made to investigators last year. But this Monday, everyone came back to this version.
Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren considers that employees are “in a relationship of absolute subordination towards their employer”. And yet emphasizes that, despite personnel changes over the years, "the only permanence" in Fontenaille during the 20 years of hunting protected species, "it is Olivier Bouygues as manager on the estate". She says she doesn't believe the billionaire's version, who claims to "delegate and trust" his employees in the field, without worrying about the details. “Trust does not exclude control, delegating is not letting go,” asserts the prosecutor.
“An industrial system”
Before the prosecutor, the lawyers for the civil parties had also consistently charged the defendants, while welcoming the confessions of some of the game wardens and the manager. In all, 17 associations (environmental, hunters, etc.) had become civil parties before the trial. And they all regret “the considerable environmental and ecological damage” that the six defendants would have caused. The Bird Protection League (LPO) estimates that around 220 protected animals are slaughtered each year, from 2019 to 2025, by Olivier Bouygues employees in Fontenaille. “This is a minimum estimate, based on the documents in the file and the statements of the defendants,” defends Me Jérôme Graefe, lawyer for the LPO.
The LPO has also created a system for evaluating the ecological damage created by the destruction of a protected animal, according to criteria of rarity, the impact of the disappearance of an individual on an animal population, or on the efforts of society to defend this species. The association thus arrived at a total addition, for six years of destruction of protected animals, to an ecological damage of 756,787.50 euros, very precisely, on the Olivier Bouygues estate. Funds that seven environmental protection associations (also including One Voice and the Athenas center) promise to share equitably to finance environmental “repair” operations. In this case, by acquiring land near Sologne to make it a refuge for the species destroyed in Fontenaille, and by paying for protection, reintroduction and scientific monitoring operations.
The high sum is justified, according to the civil parties, by the extent of the damage. For Me Graefe, it is not a question of the slaughter of an isolated individual, but of “repeated destruction over time”. What Laure Abramowitch describes as an “industrial system of destruction of protected species”:
There are production objectives: we need quality game in quantity so that each guest can leave with their hunting trophy. It's not managing an area, it's exploiting it for recreational purposes, and eliminating anything that can be annoying. We call it whim.
Laure Abramowitch, lawyer for the Athenas center
Me Coline Robert, counsel for three associations, also mentions "cruel practices", recalling that the investigations revealed "a heron killed with sticks, the use of prohibited leghold traps for the suffering they inflict on animals, or poisoning with prohibited plant protection products". According to her, on Olivier Bouygues' Loirétain estate, "animals are not considered as living beings but as objects".
And all the associations, like the prosecutor, agree on one thing: Olivier Bouygues, according to them, knew. “I would like to believe that you were not aware of everything,” assures the defendant Benoît Berger, lawyer for the Loiret Departmental Federation of Hunters. “But you were aware of this pest file, you requested their destruction, you paid the premiums. You are part of this group, of this agreement.” Patrice Grillon, lawyer for two animal rights associations, asks: "Who is the boss? We know very well that it is Mr. Bouygues. However, the protagonists have a unanimous speech which aims to exonerate the boss."
The defense requests the cancellation of the procedure
On the first day of the trial, for an hour and a half, the six lawyers for the six defendants took the stand in court to demand the outright annulment of the trial. In fact, by pleading the nullity and illegality of a large part, if not the entirety, of the investigation file.
It all starts from the anonymous testimony collected by inspectors from the French Biodiversity Office on March 25, 2025. “It does not appear in the file,” was surprised Tristan Gautier, lawyer for one of the five employees of the estate. “It is simply mentioned in the file in a single sentence. How can we explain this absence when the entire investigation starts from this testimony?” According to the lawyer, there was "concealment of essential documents", which would taint "the fairness of the debates, respect for adversarial matters and the rights of the defense".
Pierre-Alexandre Narcy, counsel for another employee, also questioned the meeting between the anonymous witness and the investigators, a few days after the first report. "How does the anonymous person become a witness? Either we already know his identity, so the document saying that he is anonymous is a fake. Or we do research to find him, and we do not record him in the file. Or there was never even a question of an anonymous witness", he said, calling into question the entire speech of the prosecution.
On this second day of the trial, from 2 p.m., the lawyers pleaded for the abandonment of the aggravating circumstance of "organized gang", applied to the destruction of protected species. According to Me Etienne Arnaud, lawyer for a game warden on the estate, "it is not because several people commit the same offense that it is an organized gang", the council believing that each employee was acting on their own, without any real coordinated organization.
The advice of the five employees focused on the confessions and regrets made by their clients, who do not deny having hunted protected animals. And asked for reduced sentences compared to the requisitions. The prosecutor notably requested the withdrawal of the hunting licenses of the six defendants for three years. “The loss of your hunting license means the loss of your job and your housing,” argues Baptiste Bonhomme, lawyer for one of the game wardens housed on the Fontenaille estate.
