'Golden Coq' returned to southern French village after 25 years

A rueful thief has returned a golden ornamental cockerel stolen in a French village, lifting the veil on its mysterious disappearance nearly 25 years ago.

The town hall of Bessan (for illustrative purposes only) © Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

The wrought-iron, gold-painted cockerel was taken in April 1999 from the top of an outdoor Catholic cross in Bessan, a village of 5,500 inhabitants located between the towns of Beziers and Agde in southern France.

Locals were kept guessing as to its whereabouts until the metal bird was sent in a parcel to historian Michel Sabatery.

He had kept the mystery in the public eye by writing about it in local newspapers and on social media.

When he received the statue in November, Sabatery informed the mayor's office, which in turn alerted the prosecutor of Beziers, Raphael Balland.

L'affaire insolite du retour anonyme d'une statue de coq volée il y a près de 25 ans à @villedebessan a pris un tournant surprenant.https://t.co/PzcVEuJfoV

— Hérault Tribune (@HeraultTribune) January 2, 2024

'Drunken party'

Police quickly identified the thief, mostly because he had paid for the parcel postage with his own credit card, according to Bessan's mayor Stephane Pepin-Bonet.

When he was confronted by police, the thief confessed, Balland said, telling them he had taken the cockerel – a weathervane – on the night of a drunken party.

Prosecutors said, once he had sobered up, he felt too ashamed to give it back and hid it in his basement.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, the man, now in his late 40s, re-discovered the cockerel in the cellar and decided it was time to return it.

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Celebration of cockerel's return

The weathervane will be put back on the iron mission cross in a forthcoming ceremony, mayor Pepin-Bonet said, but this time "really well attached so it can't fly away again".

The mayor seemed ready to forgive what he said was "possibly a youthful indiscretion" but said he would remind people at the ceremony that ornaments like the cockerel were part of the village's heritage, which "maybe doesn't have great value but belongs to everybody".

The prosecutor declined to divulge the identity of the thief, who has nothing to fear from the law because France's statute of limitations – six years for petty theft – makes him immune from prosecution.