Le versant animal is a philosophical reflection on the status of animals in our contemporary world. Through them more than anything else, we are aware of the disquieting truth of ecological fragility. While addressing the political and moral aspects of the preservation and conservation of animals and their habitats, Bailly brings to light the aesthetic dimension of our coexistence. He looks at human depictions over time of the animal in landscape, painting, film, theater, and literature. He sets forth the idea that from the dawn of time, animals have inhabited the human conscience, even though mankind has not been able to think about or regard animals as equals.

As animal species disappear from our world on a daily basis, Bailly sees the protection of the diversity of animal life as a political necessity. To that end each animal, he writes, “is a beginning, an opening, a point of action, intensity, resistance” for us all.