The suspicion of animal mistreatment at the Maule slaughterhouse led several members of the L214 group to install hidden cameras in March 2016, police sources reported. Hard images were recorded, including how slaughterhouse workers beat lambs and calves again and again. They were put upside down before the animals died, and the lambs wandered down the ground; one of them showed the images of a broken machine. Accused of placing the cameras, several members of the group have begun to try in Pau.

Members of the animalist group are being tried for a crime of interference in the private life of workers with the installation of cameras. It's the first judgment of this kind you have. However, in addition to that of Maule, images of other slaughterhouses were also recorded. In 2017, for example, at the slaughterhouse in Houdane, France, militants were captured by keeping the cameras and sentenced the association to pay the penalty with reversal, which if a new crime were committed would be added to the penalty.

Specifically, according to the images recorded by the L214 group, last year the former director of the slaughterhouse in Maule and some workers were convicted of "deceit" and "unnecessary mistreatment". In fact, the heaviest penalties referred to "deceit", the slaughterhouse had a label and in many places the person responsible and the staff were condemned for not having taken the appropriate measures, but for maltreatment. The defence used as an argument that the workers were in a slaughterhouse in precarious working conditions.

The images of the slaughterhouse in Maule provoked a great scandal and echoed them outside Euskal Herria. The French Government has already announced that it will take action against animal abuse and, in particular, raised the possibility of installing cameras. The Mayor of Maule temporarily closed the slaughterhouse. It is currently open, with the revised rules.