A man in France has been handed a five-month suspended sentence for shooting a noisy rooster and then impaling it on an iron bar.

Marcel, a cockerel from the Ardèche, was shot dead in May by a neighbour who had become irate with his crowing.

Sebastien Verney, Marcel’s owner, then started a petition calling for “justice” for the rooster. It has since been signed by almost 100,000 people.

The neighbour was found guilty of animal cruelty and other offences.

Along with the suspended sentence, he was also fined €300 and banned from carrying a weapon for three years.

“This will never repair what was done,” Mr Verney told the AFP news agency.

In the petition, he speaks of the “terrible tragedy” that struck the family, while calling for the countryside to not “become a museum”.

“Who will be the next victim? Turtle doves tweeting, the wheat harvest, the growing tomatoes, the braying of the donkey, the sound of our bell towers or the grazing of our cows?”

This is just the latest rooster-based spat to hit the headlines in France.