A man died after an accident on Thursday during a Camargue race, an ancestral form of bullfighting, in the arenas of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône), the Federation announced on Thursday in a press release. French in the Camargue race.
It was a trainee raseteur, these men dressed in white and equipped with a hook who must remove the attributes – rosette, tassels, strings – fixed between the horns of the bull during the Camargue races. To avoid the “cornades”, the raseteurs escape by jumping over the red wooden palisades which border the arena and by clinging to the bleachers.
Ancestral form of bullfighting
The accident, the circumstances of which have not been specified, occurred during a league race, a race with young bulls intended for beginner raseteurs. Following the tragedy, the FFCC decided, “as a matter of urgency”, to cancel “initially until Wednesday inclusive” all league races, while maintaining the official races on the calendar.
In September 2020, a 23-year-old raseteur died after being hit by a bull during a Camargue race in the arenas of Vallabrègues in the Gard. The Camargue race is an ancestral form of bullfighting, without the killing of the animal, unlike bullfighting imported from Spain. It is practiced in four departments in the south of France, Gard, Vaucluse, Hérault and Bouches-du-Rhône.