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Teddy bears with real animal fur cause outrage in France

The Local France
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Teddy bears with real animal fur cause outrage in France
Photo: Histoire de Bêtes

A French company has come under fire for making teddy bears with real animal fur.

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The luxurious soft toy manufacturer "Histoire de Bêtes" makes its teddies with rabbit, mink and coypu fur, with an added piece of crocodile skin for the teddy bear's nose.
 
Prices can reach up to €1,800 per teddy.
 
The company prides itself on producing its toys "with love", saying that each toy comes with an "extra soul and softness". 
 
However, news that these teddies are made with real animal fur has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many. 
 
"How could someone give a child a teddy bear made of real fur? It sullies their innocence," one tweeter said.
 
The Twitter user below said the company was "disgraceful" and called for a boycott. 
 
Over 40,000 people have signed online petitions calling for the company to stop making the toys. 
 
The director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Céline Sissler-Bienvenu, said: "I really regret that this company is so far behind. Society's views have changed."
 
Histoire de Bêtes said in a statement that it only worked with French fur makers, adding that it was the fur farmers abroad who sometimes lacked welfare measures.
 
A  spokeswoman from animal rights group L214, however, told The Local that animals were mistreated in France too. 
 
"In the cases that we've witnessed in France, fur is produced in factory farms where the animals are kept inside tiny cages in appalling conditions," she said.
 
She added that using real animal fur was "completely unnecessary".
 
Clothes manufacturers around the world have given up on using fur, including H&M and TopShop, and more recently The Kooples and Georgio Armani.
 
By James Vasina

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