The rooster ‘Maurice’, accused of nuisance for its crow, stands at Saint-Pierre-d’Oleron in La Rochelle, western France. — AFP file photo
ROCHEFORT, France: The owner of famed French rooster Maurice emerged victorious on Thursday from a legal battle with her neighbours over his early-morning crowing, with a court upholding the bird’s right to sing in the day.
The case filed by the neighbours of Maurice’s owner Corinne Fesseau has made headlines around the world, seen as symptomatic of the tensions in the countryside between rural folk and holiday home owners.
“Maurice won and the plaintiffs must pay his owner 1,000 euros in damages,” Fesseau’s lawyer Julien Papineau told AFP.
Fesseau had told the court in Rochefort, western France, that nobody near her home on the picturesque Atlantic island of Oleron had ever complained about Maurice before a couple of pensioners bought a holiday home next door.
After they complained of being woken by his crowing, she made several attempts to silence him, including placing black sheets around his coop to trick him into thinking that morning had not yet broken — all to no avail.
“I’m speechless,” Fesseau said on Thursday, adding: “It’s a victory for everyone in the same situation as me. I hope it will set a precedent for them.”
The case has ballooned into a national cause celebre, with 140,000 people signing a “Save Maurice” petition or proudly displaying his picture on “Let Me Sing” T-shirts. — AFP