The fight against animal abandonment figures as a major societal concern in France. In 2021, the Observatory for the Protection of Domestic Carnivores (OCAD) was implemented in order to create an interdisciplinary collaboration to generate and communicate knowledge on the protection of dogs and cats and to propose pathways for improving public policy. The French Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (FRCAW) is the expert body of OCAD, its primary mission was to carry out an analysis of the current information on dogs and cats abandonment in France, and: i) to propose hypotheses on the causes and consequences of abandonment, ii) to suggest additional data to be collected, iii) to suggest actions to be carried out by OCAD members. In 2021, a total of 206,907 abandonments could be calculated from the French National Identification Register for Domestic Carnivores (I-CAD), comprising 147,547 cats and 59,360 dogs. The majority of these abandonments (84%) concerns unidentified animals. Nevertheless, as abandonment is a complex and multifactorial subject, it appears necessary for further work to establish a precise definition of the term ‘abandonment’ and the categories of animals it includes. OCAD should therefore establish its own database with data inputs from its members, so that abandonments can be calculated more accurately (without focusing solely on identification status). The FRCAW provides advice to the OCAD on the actions to be taken both upstream of abandonment to avoid overcrowding in shelters and save the animals avoidable stress, and downstream to ensure the best possible care for abandoned animals.