La Pourcailhade (also known as La Fete du Cochon or Festival of the Pig) was a pig festival that was held each year in August in the town of

Trie-sur-Baïse Trie-sur-Baïse (; oc, Tria de Baïsa) is a Communes of France, commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées Departments of France, department in south-western France. It is the administrative center in a Canton (country subdivision), canton comprising 22 vi ...

, in the Hautes-Pyrénées department of south-western France. It was first held in 1975 and was organised by La Confrérie du Cochon or the Brotherhood of the Pig. The festival involved displays, pig races, eating contests and other competitions. The most popular competition was "Le Championnat de France du Cri de Cochon" ("French Pig-Squealing Championships"), in which contestants had to imitate the noises pigs make at various stages in their life. It once featured on the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

television programme '' Eurotrash''. The contest achieved international notoriety in 2005 when a photo of one of the contestants Jacques Barrot was doctored and portrayed as an attempt to ridicule the Prophet Mohammed in the

Akkari-Laban dossier The Akkari-Laban dossier ( ar, ملف عكّاري لبن) is a 43-page document which was created by a group of Danish Muslim clerics from multiple organizations set out to present their case and ask for support from Islamic leadership in Egypt ...

produced by two imams who had been granted sanctuary in Denmark but were upset by the publication of 12 cartoons related to Mohammed in the

Jyllands-Posten ''Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten'' (; English: ''The Morning Newspaper "The Jutland Post"''), commonly shortened to ''Jyllands-Posten'' or ''JP'', is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper. It is based in Aarhus C, Jutland, and with a weekday circulat ...

newspaper. The dossier was used as evidence of anti-Muslim feeling in Denmark in several tours of Arab countries by the imams and others in an attempt to inflame passions about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. La Pourcailhade was relaunched in August 2018.

References

*Piers Letcher, ''Eccentric France'' ( Bradt, 2003) Festivals in France Recurring events established in 1975 Tourist attractions in Hautes-Pyrénées {{festival-stub