Like the UK, France has a very politically powerful hunting lobby. Obviously gluing birds to trees for hours/days as a recreational activity is unacceptable in a civilised society, but they'd probably have been allowed to keep doing it indefinitely without international law.European judges have ordered France to outlaw the hunting of songbirds using glue sticks, a practice described by campaigners as barbaric and a threat to endangered species.
French hunters argued the method was traditional and justified exemption from an EU ban introduced in 1979.
Until recently, the French government had successfully sought an opt-out that allowed glue hunting in five departments in south-east France on the grounds that it was “controlled, selective and in limited quantities”.
Slaughter of the songbirds: the fight against France's 'barbaric' glue traps
Read more
On Wednesday, the European court of justice ruled the practice was not selective and contravened EU rules. The ECJ called on France to ban glue-stick hunting of birds definitively.
Now if they can just stop pumping lead all over the countryside and stop killing large numbers of endangered species we'll be sitting pretty.