Senators voted against the ban on bullfighting shows for minors under 16.
The Senate largely rejected on Thursday a text banning bullfighting shows for minors under 16, during a debate which revived divisions between protectors of local traditions and defenders of the animal cause.
The upper house, dominated by the right, rejected by 237 votes to 64 a transpartisan bill, which aimed to prohibit the organization of bullfight shows in the presence of children under 16 in the name of “protection of childhood” faced with “traumatic” scenes.
A far from unexpected outcome in the “chamber of territories”, dominated by the right and the centrists. Especially since the government was also unfavorable to this proposal, like most of the communist group and half of the socialist group.
The text of a Macronist senator rejected
The text from Macronist senator Samantha Cazebonne intended to prohibit the organization of bullfight shows in the presence of children under 16, in the name of “child protection”.
“Is it acceptable for minors to witness the suffering of a living being, while their understanding of the values of compassion and kindness is still being formed? We have a duty to protect their innocence,” launched the author of the text.
The latter had received in recent days the support of numerous elected officials, the SPA and anti-corrida associations and collectives, who took up the tabling of this bill to raise awareness of the “dangers” of these shows for minors.
“Adults standing up and applauding the blood is an important symbolism. And the responsibility of adults is to protect children,” said ecologist Guillaume Gontard.
But the camp of the defenders of bullfighting was also widely supported, with a significant media response in the territories where bullfighting remains an “uninterrupted local tradition”, the only ones where this practice is still authorized as an exception.
The Union of French Bullfighting Cities (UVTF) had thus multiplied initiatives to denounce this text which it considers to be “an unprecedented attack” against bullfighting.
