Ahead of the Olympics, PETA France Activists Bodypainted in Flag Colors Unite Against Animal Use in Fashion

For Immediate Release:
July 22, 2024

Contact:
Rachel Hershkovitz 202-483-7382

Today, ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games, nearly naked PETA France activists, each bodypainted in the colors of a different nation’s flag, came together in the Olympic spirit of peace, respect, and friendship to draw attention to the routine mistreatment and exploitation of animals for fur, leather, and feathers—abuse there’s no place for anywhere in the world. Representing several nations and holding signs reading, “United Against Cruelty to Animals” and “No Leather, Feathers, or Fur!” in their respective languages, the protesters put on a colorful display in Place de la République in the center of Paris.

The striking demonstration focused the world’s attention on Paris ahead of the Olympic Games, reminding everyone that industries that raise and kill sentient beings for their skin should be a thing of the past.

Photos and video of the demonstration are available here.

“The Olympic Games are about solidarity and peace, which makes them the perfect stage to remind the world that exploiting animals for their skin is an unjust and bloody business,” says PETA U.K. Vice President for Europe Mimi Bekhechi. “All eyes are on Paris, the fashion capital of the world, and we’re calling on the industry to play fair and stop confining, bludgeoning, and skinning animals—sometimes while they’re still alive—for fur, leather, feathers, and other materials obtained from their suffering.”

Animals on fur factory farms spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy cages, where they often go insane from confinement before workers kill them with poison, gas, or electrocution or by breaking their necks. In the leather industry, more than 1 billion animals a year are confined on hellish factory farms before they’re taken to a slaughterhouse, where their throats are slit. Meanwhile, birds exploited for their down and feathers are denied everything that’s natural and important to them in the meat and foie gras industries or painfully plucked alive, which severely wounds their delicate skin, over and over again until they’re killed.

While Paris is in the global spotlight during the run-up to the Olympic Games, PETA France has held other actions for animals, such as projecting a provocative video across some of the city’s most iconic landmarks to denounce luxury fashion house LVMH’s use of wild-animal skins. The projection illuminated sites including the Eiffel Tower and Place Vendôme during an Olympics-themed Vogue World fashion show.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.