Mr Denormandie said: “A pet is neither a consumable product nor a toy.”
More than 100,000 pets - mainly cats and dogs - are abandoned in France each year. In 2019, animal charity la Fondation 30 Millions d’Amis drew attention to the statistic with a hard-hitting video campaign, and awarded France the dubious honour of being “champion of Europe” for pet abandonment.
Mr Denormandie added: “More than 750,000 dogs and cats are officially sold or adopted every year in France, and we often see many of what we might call impulse buys.”
As part of plans to combat this the government plans to bring in “an obligatory educational certificate for all adopters and buyers”.