Bullfighting fans attend festival in France amid calls for ban
Thousands of bullfighting fans have flocked to southern France for traditional summer ferias whilst opponents of the practice are trying to get an outright ban, believing they finally have public opinion on their side.
“I think the majority of French people share the view that bullfights are immoral, a spectacle that no longer has its place in the 21st century,” said Aymeric Caron, a popular former TV journalist and animal rights activist who was recently elected to parliament as part of the hard-left France Unbowed party.
Animal activists and critics of the practice have spent years trying to get what they call the cruel and archaic ritual banned, but none of the draft bills presented has ever been approved for debate by National Assembly lawmakers.
French courts have also routinely rejected lawsuits lodged by animal rights activists.
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But Caron told AFP that it was now time for a new proposal amid a time when there is growing concern about animal welfare, a draft bill is to be submitted this week.
“I do indeed hope this bill will be debated in parliament in November… it would be a first,” he said.
The prospect seems all the more likely after France Unbowed won dozens of new seats in recent elections, helping to strip President Macron of his centrist majority in parliament.
Activists and critics want to change an animal welfare law that allows exceptions for bullfights and cock fighting.
Bullfighting fans attend festival in France amid calls for ban – Not a French tradition
Aymeric Caron said “it’s not a French tradition, it’s a Spanish custom that was imported to France in the 19th century to please the wife of Napoleon III, who was from Andalusia,” the countess Eugenie de Montijo.
But the argument is not likely to sway the thousands of fans who pack the street for bullfighting.
“The people who want to ban it don’t understand it. Bullfighting is a drama that brings you closer to death… You’re afraid, but that’s a part of life,” said Jean-Luc Ambert, a fan of bullfighting.
The president of the national bullfighting association, Andre Viard didn’t seem to worry about the threat of a ban.
“This comes up in every parliamentary session,” Viard told AFP of Caron’s efforts to find allies for the France Unbowed initiative.
Bullfighting bans in other countries
Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela have also seen similar opposition to bullfighting.
In June, a judge in Mexico City ordered an indefinite suspension of bullfighting in the capital’s historic bullring, the largest in the world.
France’s Caron is now banking on cross-party support to force through a ban.
An Ifop poll earlier this year found that 77 per cent of respondents approved of a ban, up from 50 per cent in 2007.