The text, carried by centrist senator Samantha Cazebonne, suggests banning bullfighting and cockfighting in the presence of minors under sixteen years of age
in order to protect from exposure to violence
. It has little chance of being adopted but the bullfighting community has already denounced attacks on freedom
and to the tradition
.
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Each parent and each child must be given the opportunity to choose
says Christine Banuls, member of the La Embestida bullfighting association in Bouillargues, in the south of France.
The goal is to kill bullfighting. If we no longer pass on the values of bullfighting to children, they will no longer go to the bullring and it will stop.
estimates the fifty-year-old.
Since 2012, La Embestida has organized one of the last events of the bullfighting season in the Bouillargues arena in mid-October with young student bullfighters.
This year, three Spanish novilleros (unconfirmed bullfighters), dressed in their bright clothes, bullfighted in the rain and killed six young bulls from French breeding farms.
In the almost full stands, around ten minors, including children, attended the novillada to the sound of the fanfare. The latter, if they were accompanied, did not pay the 15 euros entry fee.
Like Maxime's son, an 8-year-old boy who adore
the run
I was afraid that the killing of the bull would affect him, but in the end, no, he is not more shocked than that
says the 36-year-old man, who takes his son to please him
».
But if the bill passes, we won't go anymore, that's all
says Maxime, one of the few not to be outraged by the project.
Ludivine Boyer defends a tradition
. Coming to the arenas with a group of friends and the 4-year-old daughter of one of them, she thinks it is “important” that they can attend, but without them. force
.
Yes, it's hard, but a cat getting run over is hard too
sweeps away the 36-year-old woman. Taking the kids to bullfighting is part of parents' choice, education […] We are in a country of freedom
.
The “dream” of becoming a bullfighter
France, where bullfights take place only in the south, in Bayonne, Mont-de-Marsan, Nîmes, Arles or Béziers, is one of the eight countries in the world where this spectacle is still organized. Colombia has planned its ban in 2027.
Most countries where bullfighting is legal allow the presence of minors, who sometimes must be accompanied by adults. There are some bans, such as in the Spanish region of Galicia for children under 12 and in some Venezuelan arenas.
At the end of 2022, another text, tabled by the radical left to completely ban bullfighting, led to heated debates in the National Assembly before being withdrawn by its author, faced with the tabling of hundreds of amendments aimed, according to him, at obstruct
the debate.
For Marc Jamet, professor at the Nîmes Bullfighting Center, which trains a dozen students between 6 and 22 years old, the ban on minors is a aberration
. Transmission would be cut
he explains.
These are kids who went to see a bullfight with their grandfather or their parents who were bitten by the local mosquito
says former bullfighter Richard Milian, who runs the only bullfighting school in the South-West, in Cauna.
Becoming a bullfighter is dream
of Elias, 13 years old, who saw his first bullfights at the age of 3 and is now training in Nîmes. When I was little, I said to myself: the man in the middle of the arena could be me
.
To attract young people, the Union of French Taurine Towns (UVTF) has set up advantageous pricing for them and this year offered places to 2,300 young people under 25 years old.
Anthony Sorbet, 25 years old, founder of the Young Aficionados du Sud Ouest collective, uses social networks to to discover
to the youth all the emotions that can be experienced in the arenas
. It's not just violence. When we are little, what marks us is rather the power of the moment
.
