Couple lose battle over neighbour’s cock

GRENOBLE, France, Dec 16 (AFP) – A rooster whose pre-dawn cock-a-doodle-doo upset a neighbouring couple will be able to continue his cacophony after a French judge Tuesday threw out a court case hanging over him.

The judge, in the eastern town of Gap, upheld a lower court’s verdict that the fowl – a living representative of France’s national symbol – was just doing what he was meant to do and the couple had no right to demand he be removed.

They were ordered to pay legal costs.

The two plaintiffs, who in 1999 moved into a rural house right next to a chicken farm that had been there for more than a decade, had complained that the rooster had given them insomnia with its crowing at 4:00 am.

The rooster’s owner, Eric Villiot, told AFP that the judgement was a victory for animal-breeders across the country who had problems with neighbours – a phenomenon that has increased with the trend of city-dwellers buying second homes in France’s countryside.

As for his loudmouthed bird, he said: “I am going to let my rooster die a natural death.”

© AFP

                                                                Subject: France news