Dr Jean-Noel Blet is a physician in Normandy and a director of the French National Association of Waterfowl Hunters. He is delighted that the French parliament has defied the European Commission by legalising a 7 1/2-month hunting season.

"We have a French law," Dr Blet told The Irish Times. "Every country has the right to its own laws and institutions. I am French first. I accept Europe, but I want Europe to respect our French laws . . . The right to hunt was acquired in the French Revolution. I don't see why it should be taken from us by a European directive."

Dr Blet says French authorities should have sought an exception under the terms of annexes to the 1979 European directive. "We should have introduced the traditional dates of hunting in France; for more than 100 years we have hunted from July 14th until the end of February. The French law merely formalised what we always did. Europe doesn't want to recognise this because Europe - especially the technocrats in Brussels - are against hunting.

"They think it's not necessary for the survival of man, which is true now. They claim it's barbaric." Hunting is "ethical", Dr Blet claims. "We are very concerned that animals and birds be respected, that if there is an act of hunting, it be done cleanly, correctly. You mustn't shoot to wound. You mustn't shoot at an animal unless you are certain of killing it. If by misfortune you wound it, you must finish it off quickly."

Dr Blet helped organise last winter's 150,000-strong hunters' march in Paris. "Next time we'll go to Brussels," he says. "We won't let them mess around with us now. If we demonstrate against the [European)] directive, I assure you the French won't be alone. This time we'll have the Italians, the Greeks and the Spanish with us."