This Thursday, bullfighting enters the arena of the National Assembly. Aymeric Caron’s bill (Nupes) to ban this tradition, still in force in a handful of towns in the south of France, will be examined by the law commission. This text, which aims to banish this practice considered barbaric, arrives while bullfighting has been the object, for several years, of increasingly virulent attacks on the part of its opponents.
Several (small) municipalities have also given up on it. In Palavas-les-Flots (Hérault), for economic reasons and growing public disaffection, indicated the seaside resort, in 2017. In Vergèze (Gard), it was officially in 2020, for security reasons. But the debate raging around this tradition has undoubtedly put the last horn in these town halls. Can we still, today, defend bullfighting? 20 minutes posed the question to aficionados, who have no plans to let their guard down.
“You can be young and defend bullfighting”
Dominique Valmary, the president of the Federation of French bullfighting societies, recognizes that defending bullfighting has become “complicated”. “But we are getting there, we have arguments,” he says. “We defend a cultural community, explains Dominique Valmary. We also defend the fighting bull, and its breeding, which would disappear if bullfighting were abolished, because it is not economically profitable, in terms of meat or milk production. The bull has ideal living conditions, until the age of four, and then can demonstrate its aggressive qualities in the arena. It is the only herbivore whose defense system is attack. And the suffering of the bull, and its killing in bloodshed, denounced by the opponents, how to justify it? “We answer that we highlight the bull, to the end of its raison d’être”, continues the leader of the bullfighting clubs.
Corentin Carpentier, passionate about bullfighting, and spokesperson for the Union de la jeunesse taurine de France, assures us that it is “obviously still possible, today, to defend bullfighting. You can even be young today and defend bullfighting. “In rural areas, where bullfighting is established, “the debate is not raging, as we tend to see in the media, at the national level, continues this thirty-year-old from Nîmes. We are facing a territorial divide, between those who live their passion freely, without ever imposing anything on anyone, and those who see bullfighting through a small end of the telescope, through videos, taken out of context. »
“If they don’t like bullfighting, they just don’t have to go”
Because what happens in the arena, he continues, “is only the conclusion of a much larger culture, immensely respectful of animal welfare”. And it is not relevant, notes the Nîmes aficionado, to “put on the same footing, his dog or his companion cat, with a fighting bull, to whom we have allowed to preserve his deep nature, the savage aspect and the combativeness”. To defend their passion, faced with the surge of videos where we see painful images of bulls in the arena, the Union of bullfighting youth of France counter-attacks. On Monday, the federation published a videoalready seen more than 20,000 times, where a young veterinarian and bull breeder explains her love for bullfighting, and why it must not disappear.
Laurent Jaoul (unlabeled), also aficionado, will be at the National Assembly next week to oppose Aymeric Caron’s text. Like other elected officials from France, the mayor of Saint-Brès, a town in the Hérault of some 3,200 inhabitants, will attend the debates. He has always defended “all the traditions of our country, hunting, traditional hunts, the Camargue race, and bullfighting”, he confides. “Of course, we can still defend bullfighting, notes Laurent Jaoul. But I am also perfectly aware that it is limited, with the environmental lobby. But we are here. »
“We have a future”
The elected official has also written to the deputies of Hérault, in recent hours, to ask them “to reject this bill”. “To the opponents, I answer that if they don’t like bullfighting, they just have to go there, he scolds. Me, for example, I don’t like boxing matches. It’s not my thing, I’m not going. You know, in a bullfight, the bull goes into battle. He is more likely to survive than someone who goes to the slaughterhouse. »
As the examination of the text of the Nupes approaches, Corentin Carpentier wonders. “Do we play politics with emotion? Or do we do politics in a pragmatic way, taking into account all the ins and outs of a culture that keeps people alive, that makes people happy? “The Nîmes does not think that the opponents will manage to bury his passion. “We have a future,” he says. We have never seen so many youngsters taking over the breeding of their parents. Young people who get involved in associations. Every day, young people call us. »