It depends of the French law. Fish are vertebrate animal so day are protected by the general European normative stated in the Directive n.º 2010/63/UE. The transposition and national application of those legal statements concerns to each internal law of each member state.

Thank you very much. I will look at the directive.

Cordially,

Fish larvae are actually not protected by the EU Directive. Only when they are independently feeding larval forms, they are protected and require project authorisation when used for scientific purposes (art.1.3).

Also, have a look at art. 9: animals taken from the wild. In principle: animals taken from the wild should not be used in scientific procedures.

Just a note: Art.9 on wild animals is not particularly relevant if your aim is to do work of ecological relevance, especially if it is in natural environments. I guess this article is mostly aimed at medical and laboratory work, like most of the regulations on animal experimentation.

I would ask someone who are in charge of the ethical permits at the institution that provides them. They should know. If you do work without permit, when you really should have one, most journals will not accept that work for publication (and it may be that your institution will lose its permit to work on animals, if you are caught doing research without permits)- in general you have to provide the license number in the paper.

As it is post-larvae, I would guess that you do need some kind of permit.

Indeed, we need wild animals but we have a permit to collect these samples in my lab. So this is not a problem. Furthermore, since we are not causing any injury, no injecting any product and causing very limited stress, we are actually not be included in this directive (article exclusions: 1.5.e. & f.). 

So, my concern is only about the ethical permit, but for that I will ask the ethical committee of my organization. 

Thank you very much for your help.