Should animals be used to teach veterinary medicine?
André Ménache, President of Antidote Europe and a veterinarian himself, is well placed to answer this question — no! — which is exactly what he did during a video conference organized by students at the National Veterinary School of Alfort.
On March 10, 2026, André Ménache gave a video conference to students at the National Veterinary School of Alfort (ENVA) on “alternative models to animals in education and research.” While we had contacted staff at this school in the past to offer talks and been turned down, it was ultimately the Société francophone d’éthologie vétérinaire junior (SFEV Jr, a French-speaking student veterinary ethology association) that organized this video conference, and we warmly thank them for the invitation.
After a brief presentation of Antidote Europe, our president mentioned the three main areas in which animals are used for scientific purposes: teaching, regulatory testing, and research. He first focused on the former, which was, of course, of particular interest to his audience.
Object, discuss, denounce
Having organized and delivered a webinar in the United Kingdom a month earlier on the right to conscientious objection for students who do not wish to take part in practical work involving animal suffering (https://youtu.be/CrYdp-G71wY?si=2jFBxOC088TkDTHD), André Ménache presented this issue again, this time in French.
He cited concrete examples of approaches to counter institutional inertia. The first is drawn from his own experience. For a zoology course during his studies in South Africa, he was supposed to collect around fifty insects of different species and pin them to boards… Already a vegetarian and unwilling to kill animals, he asked his professor if he could instead draw the insects displayed at the university’s zoology museum. The professor gave the green light! A fine demonstration that simple dialogue can bear fruit.
The second success story for avoiding the use of animals comes from support action led by Antidote Europe for fourteen female students at the University of Strasbourg who refused to take part in practical work involving experiments on hamsters. This time, dialogue with the professors did not succeed. We offered legal support based on the right to conscientious objection, or alternatively, to alert the media. The students chose the second option, and their fight received significant media coverage, with an outcome that even exceeded their original goal of avoiding this practical work — the university simply removed the exercise altogether for the following academic year (https://antidote-europe.eu/victoire-a-strasbourg/).
There is no shortage of alternative methods, and André Ménache knows this well, as he is the French representative of the association InterNICHE (https://www.interniche.org), which showcases hundreds of methods available for teaching biology as well as human and veterinary medicine. More information is also available on our website (https://antidote-europe.eu/methodes-alternatives-recherche-animale/enseignement-biologie-medecine/).
Ongoing actions
André Ménache mentioned the use of animals for regulatory testing as well as for routine production, such as the use of mice and rabbits for producing monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, respectively. Antidote Europe has launched legal action against the Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR), which still authorizes these procedures even though alternative methods exist (https://antidote-europe.eu/action-lobbying/).
Finally, the issue of basic or applied research was raised: researchers can choose between animal experimentation and other methods. When they choose animals, it is often more out of habit, convenience, or to publish a paper quickly… and other reasons that are not really matters of scientific necessity!
See you soon?
As we were unable to address all the questions — many of them very relevant — raised at the end of the video conference, we passed along a few useful links and assured the students of our availability to answer further questions, give further talks, and, why not, organize a webinar in French?