The n°2015-177 Act of February 16th 2015 defined animals as “living beings endowed with sensitivity”, while at the same time keeping them under the property regime, respecting the laws which protect them. We suggest overhauling the legal category of the natural person in order to include the animal, which would facilitate the creation of a coherent and efficient legal regime. In addition to human beings, the legal category of the non-human natural person would thus be created. In our opinion, this prospect is all the more necessary as French law has to comply with Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights of October 15th 1978 which provides that “the specific legal status of animals and their rights must be recognised by law”. The legislator would thus remedy the numerous practical and theoretical inconsistencies of our legal system regarding animals. Our first lecture deals with companion animals. We shall widen the scope of our research to include other categories of animals (livestock, etc) in our next presentations.
