A Uniquely French Approach to Environmentalism

On a Wednesday morning last December, Bruno Landier slung his gun and handcuffs around his waist and stepped into the mouth of a cave. Inside the sprawling network of limestone cavities, which sit in a cliffside that towers above the tiny town of Marboué, in north-central France, Landier crouched under hanging vines. He stepped over rusted pipes, remnants from when the caves housed a mushroom farm. He picked his way through gravel and mud as he scanned the shadowy ecru walls with his flashlight, taking care not to miss any signs.

Landier was not gathering evidence for a murder case or tailing a criminal on the run. He was searching for bats—and anything that might disturb their winter slumber. “Aha,” Landier whispered as his flashlight illuminated a jumble of amber-colored beer bottles strewn across the floor. Someone had been there, threatening to awaken the hundreds of bats hibernating within.

Landier is an inspector in the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB), an entity that was given sweeping powers to enforce environmental laws when it was founded, in 2020. Its nationwide police force, the only one of its kind in Europe, has 3,000 agents charged with protecting French species in order to revive declining biodiversity in the country and its territories. Damaging the habitat of protected animals such as bats—much less killing a protected animal—is a misdemeanor that can carry a penalty of 150,000 euros and three years in prison. It’s a uniquely draconian, uniquely French approach to environmentalism.

The environmental police watch over all of France’s protected species, including hedgehogs, squirrels, black salamanders, lynxes, and venomous asp vipers. Bats are a frequent charge: Of the 54 protected mammal species on French soil, 34 are bats. The Marboué caves patrolled by Landier are home to approximately 12 different species.

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When Landier visits each morning, he sometimes must crouch to avoid walking face-first into clusters of sleeping notch-eared bats, which he can identify by their coffin-shaped back and “badly combed” off-white belly. They hibernate in groups of five, 10, or even 50, dangling from the ceiling like so many living umbrellas for as long as seven months each year. If roused before spring—by a loud conversation or even prolonged heat from a flashlight—the bats will flee toward almost-certain death in the cold temperatures outside the cave.

Bats, of course, aren’t the only nocturnal creatures attracted to caves. Landier has spent more than 20 years patrolling this site, beginning when he was a hunting warden for the French government. In that time, he has encountered ravers, drug traffickers, squatters, geocachers, looters, local teens looking for a place to party. When he comes across evidence such as the beer bottles, he’ll sometimes return on the weekend to stake out the entrance. First offenders might receive a verbal warning, but Landier told me he’s ready to pursue legal action if necessary. (So far, he hasn’t had to.) “I’m very nice. But I won’t be taken for a fool,” he said. In the neighboring department of Cher, several people were convicted of using bats as target practice for paintball, Landier told me. A fine of an undisclosed amount was levied against the culprits. (France prevents details of petty crimes from being released to the public.)

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Across France, many of the caverns and architecture that bats call home are themselves cherished or protected. Landier told me that relics found in his caves date back to the Gallo-Roman period, nearly 2,000 years ago; on the ceiling, his flashlight caught the glitter of what he said were fossils and sea urchins from the Ice Age. The floor is crisscrossed with long wires trailed by past explorers so they could find their way back out.

In nearby Châteaudun castle, built in the 15th century, several dozen bats live in the basement and behind the tapestries. At Chartres Cathedral, to the north, a colony of pipistrelle bats dwells inside the rafters of a medieval wooden gate. Bats flock to the abbey on Mont Saint-Michel, in Normandy, and to historic châteaus such as Chambord, in the Loire Valley, and Kerjean, in Brittany. In Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery, they chase insects from the graves of Molière, Édith Piaf, and Colette.

France is fiercely protective of its landmarks, and that sense of patrimoine extends to less tangible treasures too. For more than a century, French law has prohibited any sparkling-wine producer worldwide to call its product “champagne” unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. As part of the French naturalization process, I had to learn to match cheeses to their region (Brie to Meaux, Camembert to Normandy). Their craftsmanship, too, is included in the cultural imagination: In 2019, the French government asked UNESCO to recognize the work of Paris’s zinc roofers as part of world heritage (the jury is still out).

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In recent years, even animals have begun to be incorporated into this notion of cultural heritage. When two neighbors ended up in court in 2019 over the early-morning cries of a rooster—embraced for centuries as France’s national animal—the judge ruled in favor of Maurice the rooster. Inspired by Maurice, France then passed a law protecting the “sensory heritage of the countryside.” In the immediate aftermath of the Notre-Dame fire, a beekeeper was allowed access to care for the bees that have been living on the rooftop for years. The Ministry of Culture insists on provisions for biodiversity on all work done on cultural monuments.

Bats, despite receiving centuries of bad press, are a fitting mascot for biological patrimony. They are such ferocious insectivores—a single bat can eat thousands of bugs a night—that farmers in bat-heavy areas can use fewer pesticides on grapes, grains, and other agricultural products. On Enclos de la Croix, a family-owned vineyard in Southern France that has partnered with the OFB, insectivorous bats are the only form of pesticide used. Agathe Frezouls, a co-owner of the vineyard, told me that biodiversity is both a form of “cultural heritage” and a viable economic model.

Not all farmers have the same high regard for biodiversity—or for the OFB. Earlier this year, 100 farmers mounted on tractors dumped manure and hay in front of an OFB office to protest the agency’s power to inspect farms for environmental compliance. The farmers say that it’s an infringement on their private property and that complying with the strict environmental rules is too costly. Compliance is a major concern for OFB, especially when it comes to bats. If someone destroys a beaver dam, for instance, that crime would be easily visible to the OFB. But bats and their habitats tend to be hidden away, so the police must rely on citizens to report bats on their property or near businesses.

Agriculture is part of the reason bats need protection at all. The Marboué caves’ walls are dotted with inlays from the 19th century, when candles lit the passageways for the many employees of the mushroom farm. Until the farm closed, in the 1990s, the cave network was home to tractors and treated heavily with pesticides; their sickly sweet smell lingers in the deepest chambers. The pesticides are what drove off or killed most of the bats living here in the 20th century, Landier told me—when he first visited this site, in 1998, only about 10 bats remained. Today, it’s home to more than 450.

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After several hours inspecting the cave, Landier and I ambled back toward the entrance, passing under the vines into the harsh winter light. In the next few weeks, the bats will follow our path, leaving the relative safety of the cave to mate.

With summer coming on, the slate roofs ubiquitous throughout rural France will soon become gentle furnaces, making attics the perfect place for bats to reproduce. Homeowners reshingling roofs sometimes discover a colony of bats, and Landier is the one to inform them that they must leave their roof unfinished until the end of the breeding season. Most people let the bats be, even when it’s a nuisance. Perhaps they’re beginning to see them as part of the “sensory heritage of the countryside” too.

Support for this article was provided by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Kari Howard Fund for Narrative Journalism