Losing momentum in other countries, bullfighting is debated in France but remains in place

Bullfighting again in the political arena.

The deputies rejected, Wednesday, November 16 in commission of the laws, the inflammable proposal of prohibition of the corrida carried by rebellious Aymeric Caron, deputy Nupes of the 18th district of Paris.

A proposal which will nevertheless be examined by the National Assembly on November 24th.

"You have just sent a terrible signal to the French by explaining to them that you do not care what they want", reacted the founder of the ecologist and antispecist party Ecological Revolution for the Living (REV).

"Democracy is at stake when 8 out of 10 French people demand an end to bullfighting and you don't hear them", he continued, saying nevertheless that he had no doubt "that the National Assembly, in public session, will know express a courageous and ambitious position that will be in line with what the French want".

"You have just sent a terrible signal to the French", reacts @CaronAymericoff following the deletion of the single article of his bill aimed at abolishing #bullfighting, before evoking a vote "result of great pressure lobbies".

#DirectAN pic.twitter.com/pTJawRpE01

— LCP (@LCP) November 16, 2022

Recently, an Ifop poll for the JDD revealed that 74% of French people say they are in favor of its ban.

According to the 2022 Ifop/Foundation 30 Million Friends barometer, nearly 8 out of 10 French people (77%) want societal change to put an end to this practice.

A constantly increasing result, which has increased by no less than 27% since 2007.

However, 200 bullfights are still organized in France each year – and more than a thousand bulls killed, Roger Lahana, president of the No Corrida association, told Geo in the regions where they are authorized.

In other countries (notably South America) where the tradition is much more rooted because it is older, restrictive laws, even prohibitions, have already been taken.

And more are yet to come.

In France, where the practice developed in the course of the 19th century, political choice remains the status quo despite many attempts to abolish it.

A practice protected in the name of "uninterrupted local traditions"

In France, bullfighting could be likened to an act of cruelty, but it is protected by the seventh paragraph of article 521-1 of the Penal Code which provides for an exceptional regime in the name of "uninterrupted local traditions".

It is therefore authorized in certain territories where the practice is considered part of the heritage.

Areas officially stopped by the Court of Appeal of Toulouse in 2000 which limits the practice of bullfighting "in the South, between the country of Arles and the Basque Country, between the scrubland and the Mediterranean and between the Pyrenees and Gascony" .

More specifically, these are three regions that can now organize bullfights: New Aquitaine, Occitanie and the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region.

A decision confirmed by the Constitutional Council, seized by anti-bullfighting associations, in 2012.

To ban bullfighting in France, the legislator would therefore have to change the law, which is proposed by the new text carried by Aymeric Caron.

Bullfighting is an "exception that no longer has any place to exist", a "torture" of bulls, judges the former journalist.

• In France, article 521-1 of the Penal Code punishes acts of cruelty towards an animal:

"The fact, publicly or not, of exercising serious abuse or committing an act of cruelty towards a domestic animal, or tamed, or held in captivity, is punishable by three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros. ".

• But this provision benefits from a legislative exception in its seventh paragraph:

The provisions of this article are not applicable to bullfights when an

can be invoked.

Nor are they applicable to cockfighting in localities where an unbroken tradition can be established.

• In

  September 2013

  , a bill relating to the "removal of the exceptional authorization of abuse and acts of cruelty to animals during bullfights", was tabled in the National Assembly by the two co-presidents of the Europe Écologie-Les Verts group. (EELV), Barbara Pompili and François de Rugy.

  Proposal rejected.

The ban on this practice had already been proposed three years earlier, in

, by anti-bullfighting MPs Muriel Marland-Militello (UMP) and Geneviève Gaillard (PS).

• In

  August 2021

  , several parliamentarians – deputies and senators – had proposed to modify the law, by removing the derogation permitted by the seventh paragraph of article 521-1 of the Penal Code.

  The proposal was rejected.

And this question of society, which regularly invites itself into the political arena, is not the subject of debate only in France.

Bullfighting unleashes passions in other countries with a bullfighting tradition such as Spain, Colombia and Mexico where restrictive laws have already been adopted.

Countries, especially in Latin America, which could end up doing away with this practice.

In Spain, where the Constitution provides that exclusive competence in the defense of cultural, artistic and monumental heritage belongs to the State, it is nevertheless the Autonomous Communities that decide on the regulations.

This is how Catalonia was able to vote to ban bullfighting in July 2010. And if a decision by the constitutional court invalidated this ban in 2016, the fact remains that no more bullfighting takes place in this region.

A decision that inspired the Balearics.

In 2017, the regional parliament of the archipelago passed an animal protection law regulating bullfights, and in particular prohibiting the killing of bulls.

In the other autonomous communities, on the other hand, the tradition of bullfighting with killing continues.

A killing prohibited in 1928 in Portugal, another major country of bullfighting culture in Europe.

But the practice of bullfighting remains very strong in this country of the Iberian peninsula: a law passed in the year 2000 even made it possible to reintroduce a right to kill in certain municipalities.

In Latin America, bullfighting is running out of steam

On the other side of the Atlantic, bullfighting has been out of favor for a while.

This is the case in Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay where the practice, brought by the conquistadors in the 16th century, was banned three centuries later and has therefore already disappeared.

In Panama, it has been banned since 2012.

Despite an abolition in 1894, bullfighting continues to be practiced in Venezuela, but in a relative way since only two provinces (Táchira and Mérida, to the west) have really organized it since 2016. In the big cities, in particular the capital Caracas , the practice has been completely abandoned.

Colombia has experienced several attempts to abolish bullfighting, which have never succeeded.

Thus, bullfights with the killing of the bull still take place in certain large cities.

But in this South American country too, the situation could quickly change, with the new president Gustavo Petro presenting himself as a fervent opponent of bullfighting.

A bill aimed at prohibiting shows with the killing of the bull has already been tabled.

Ecuador is also moving gradually towards abolition.

Since 2021, the capital Quito has banned any "public or private performance involving suffering, abuse, death or any violation of animal welfare".

Exit bullfighting and cockfighting.

In Mexico City (Mexico) where the largest bullfighting arenas in the world are located, which can accommodate up to 50,000 spectators, the practice was suspended last June by a judge called to rule on the complaint of an association opposed to the bullfighting.

Of 32 Mexican states, five have already banned these shows.

In Peru, on the other hand, the tradition of bullfighting remains alive.

In early 2020, the Constitutional Court rejected a class action calling for a ban on bullfighting and cockfighting, arguing that "there is no Universal Declaration of Animal Rights".

Political disunity and "pressure from lobbies"

In France, Aymeric Caron would like to modify the Penal Code and add by amendment the prohibition of cockfighting, still authorized in the North or certain overseas territories.

A bill that causes embarrassment in the various political groups.

In the name of defending a "cultural tradition" in the Southwest and around the Mediterranean, the government intends to oppose it.

Tuesday, the eve of the passage of the proposal before the law commission, the Secretary of State in charge of Rurality, Dominique Faure, called on the deputies of her group not to "fall into the radicalism of the deputy" Caron, according to a parliamentary source.

"We must not oppose emotion and attachment to the land," she pleaded.

Sensitive, the subject divides the majority.

In July 2021, when she was not yet president of the Renaissance deputies, Aurore Bergé had signed a platform to ban bullfighting, deemed "barbaric".

Conversely, the elected representative of the Gers, Jean-René Cazeneuve, is directly opposed to the banning of this practice present in his territory.

"It will disappear on its own, there are fewer and fewer of them. There is no point in banning it and humiliating people for whom these are traditions," he argues to AFP.

On the far right there is also division.

Julien Odoul (RN) says he is ready to vote for the ban, while his colleague Emmanuel Taché de la Pagerie ardently defends bullfighting.

Greater homogeneity on the side of the Republicans, it seems.

"We are quite numerous in the group" to "say our attachment to this bullfighting tradition", notes the leader of the right-wing deputies, Olivier Marleix.

Still, under these conditions, the text has little chance of succeeding.

Especially since its full examination, on November 24 in the hemicycle, is still uncertain since it is in fourth position in the LFI "niche", after proposals such as the minimum wage at 1,600 euros or the registration of the IVG in the Constitution.

After the rejection of his text by the commission, Aymeric Caron reacted, denouncing "the weight and pressure of lobbies".

Invited by RTL the same evening, the anti-species deputy clarified: "spokespersons from the bullfighting world have informed my team that they have called politicians, people from the law commission, to convince them not to vote on this text".

Referring to a "behind-the-scenes agitation", the author of the book "Abolition", published Thursday by Robert Laffont, said he had notably noted a "turnaround on the part of Renaissance deputies (presidential majority, editor's note)" who had themselves same before mentioned "pressure exerted so that the positive vote is transformed, for example, into abstention".

A few days before the vote on the bullfighting bill in the Assembly, dozens of demonstrations took place on Saturday to demand the abolition of this practice in France.

At the cry of "corrida basta", the demonstrators gathered in an arc on the Place du Châtelet in Paris, symbolizing an arena, asked to "relegate the bullfighting arenas to the oblivion of history".

Activists organize an anti-bullfighting action during a PETA demonstration, in Paris on November 19, 2022. Julien de Rosa, AFP

In Dax, Bayonne, Béziers, Pau, Nîmes, or even Perpignan, hundreds of people demonstrated to say "yes to bullfighting".

When activists in the southwest ask: "Leave us alone", animal defenders believe that the laws should be the same throughout the territory.

According to Marie-Anne Leneveu, of the Radical Anti-Bullfighting Committee (CRAC), "it is not a minority that should impose its opinion on the majority".

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app