Programmed surveillance of Salmonella spp. contamination of fresh poultry meat at slaughterhouse and the antimicrobial resistance of strains isolated in 2014. In 2014, implementing Decision  013/652/EU on the surveillance and reporting of antimicrobial resistance in zoonotic and commensal bacteria, the Directorate General for Food (DGAL) organised a surveillance programme on poultry carcass contamination by Salmonella spp. at slaughterhouse. The antimicrobial resistance of these Salmonella isolates was also assessed. In order to produce data representative of the slaughtered volume nationwide, only certified poultry slaughterhouses were targeted in mainland and overseas France. Contamination by Salmonella spp. was on average greater than 10%. Turkey carcasses displayed

higher contamination rates than chicken carcasses. The most commonly observed serovars were not those regulated  in fresh poultry meat. Therefore, non-compliance rates remained very low, at around 1%. The resistance profiles observed rarely involved critically important antibiotics for human health. Multi-drug resistance appeared to be quite rare in chickens, while it was more frequent in turkeys. This

programme is designed to be reproduced every other year in order to provide temporal trends as well as comparable data at European level.