Published on
07/09/2026 - 12:47 GMT+2
French billionaire Olivier Bouygues arrived at court in the French city of Orléans on Monday where he is on trial, along with five others, for illegal hunting, including of protected bird species on his private hunting ground near the Sologne Forest, roughly 150 kilometres south of Paris.
The trial, expected to last two days, is largely symbolic, as it is completely unprecedented in French justice.
Bouygues, brother to Martin Bouygues who was formerly the chief executive of the Bouygues group, is accused of being among of a class of “people who are rolling in money who exempt themselves from respecting biodiversity,” according to the President of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), Allain Bougrain-Dubourg.
