Then, in December, the European Court of Justice agreed to review a complaint from three French animal-rights campaigners, backed by the European Commission on Human Rights, who say that the French law letting shooters on to smallholders' land violates property rights and freedom of association because it forces people to become de facto members of the local field-sports association.
Thanks to the three Rs, animal research had been falling from a peak of about 5.5m procedures a year in the 1970s, but recently numbers have stabilised, as genetically modified animals have started to be used to model human disease.