It had the makings of an epic culture clash encapsulating perennial, and very French, divergences: North versus South; Paris versus
la France profonde; young and educated versus gnarled and reactionary; trendies versus traditionalists; a righteous majority versus a defiant minority. I might as well be frank. It was the stushie as much as the principle that drew me. I couldn't wait.
But it was not to be. Aymeric Caron's Bill finally to abolish the spectacle – fans call it a 'sport' – of bull-fighting was crushed in the Assemblée Nationale under the weight of some 500 wrecking amendments. This was the latest attempt to stamp out a practice which remains fiercely popular with a vocal minority where it is staged, and fiercely detested everywhere else. It will not be the last.
Caron said as much as he withdrew his measure. None of the major groups in parliament was prepared formally to commit to abolition, though many prominent individuals deplore the pastime. But it is a battle that few party managers relish. 'We need to go towards a conciliation,' said President Macron suavely. 'From where I am sitting, this is not a current priority.'
The world associates bull-fighting with Spain, not France. But in a chain of south-western
départments from Bordeaux to the fringes of the Cōte d'Azur, more than 80 towns and cities retain their
arènes, and stage regular bullfights over the summer months. Others 'run' the bulls through the streets for the entertainment of young males and tourists. Bullfighting
départments cover 10% of the French hexagon, and are home to four specialist training schools.
Even those abroad who do know that France goes in for bullfighting tend to cling to a myth that the French
corrida is less brutal than the Spanish version, and generally not lethal to the bull. Sadly, this is not always true. Some districts, notably Languedoc and the Camargue, favour a form called the
course libre or
course camarguaise, whereby the objective is to snatch a rosette from the head of the enraged bull, after which the beast is led away disgruntled but alive. Another variant involves cows rather than bulls, testosterone being confined to the young
cuedrillas who perform acrobatic leaps around the lumbering bovines. Elsewhere, the familiar gory ritual of lances and swords persists. The one common feature is a humiliated and traumatised animal.
Polling suggests that 80% of the French population wants a ban. Even in bullfighting
départments, more than 60% oppose bullfights that kill the bull. The divisions are not simple to map. Here in Hérault, my adopted city of Montpellier – academic, socialist and shortly to be European Culture Capital – has no bullring. The commuter town of Maugio, across the lagoon from Montpellier Airport, has just announced that in future its bullring will be used only for non-combative shows. But many other towns nearby persist in the practice, often with hefty municipal subsidy: among them Agde, Béziers, Lunel, Palavas and Castelnau-le-Lez (the last effectively a suburb of Montpellier).
Our two nearest cities, Nimes and Arles, stage fights in their magnificent Roman amphitheatres, and count the spectacle a badge of city-state pride. We once got caught up in the crowd streaming into the Nimes arena, and it had all the singing, chanting and tribal exuberance of a cup final.
It is an argument that confronts, as arguments in France often do, progressive righteousness with cultural traditionalism. To those waving the banner of principle, the issue is clear. Tormenting animals for entertainment has no place in a civilised society. In this they have support, though not enough, from the law. The French penal code outlaws 'cruel acts and serious ill-treatment towards animals'. However, it allows exceptions where the practice is an 'uninterrupted local tradition'. Fat consolation to the bulls.
The abolitionist case is not without anomaly, nor hypocrisy. The Brava cattle of the Camargue don't all make it to the bullring. But they do, with red wine and black olives, make one of France's finest casseroles,
guardiane de taureau. I wouldn't attend a bullfight at gunpoint, but find it hard to resist this sumptuous stew. France does that to you. I don't touch
foie gras, staple of the French festive board, out of revulsion at the force-feeding of the geese and ducks that yield the product. But, like every omnivore in southern France, I eat the
magret made from breast of that breed of ducks.
Bullfight enthusiasts contrast the hoo-hah over bulls with a general indifference to the systematic cruelty that France – and not only France – brings to routine food production, from battery hens to stall-farmed pigs to frogs deprived of their back legs. What the critics really don't like, they say, is that people derive enjoyment from the bullfight. It reminds me of the roadside notices that shooting estates put up where my daughter lives in Ayrshire, urging motorists to drive watchfully in deference to the young pheasants that potter across the road. This sounds sweet, until you realise that it translates as: 'We can't have oiks like you killing our birds with your cars, when we can charge stockbrokers in silly caps a fortune to do it with a Purdey'.
Here, as there, there are arguments about tradition and the economy. Bullfighting, with an eye to the penal code, claims to be deeply embedded in the cultural heritage of the towns that indulge it, and entwined in the Catalan identity held dear at the eastern end of the Pyrenees. Pleaded too is the distinctive culture of the Camargue, the flat marshlands of the Rhone delta, where small black bulls are herded by the legendary cowboys (
guardians) on their semi-wild white horses. Were not the bulls needed for the ring, the argument runs, that whole romantic vista might be lost.
Little of this holds water. The 'tradition' only dates from the 1850s, when it was imported from Spain as a sop to Napoleon III's Spanish wife. Besides, Spanish Catalonia has banned bullfighting. Nor are the black bulls and their core economic status in the Camargue at obvious risk. The breed is around 6,000-strong, and most are used for beef not bullfighting. The Camargue also grows rice, makes wine and attracts tourists, none of which depends on ritualised bovine slaughter.
Not that these counter-arguments detract one degree from the passion of bullfight fans. But the critics are growing more fervent too. France is not exactly in the vanguard of animal welfare but it is catching up. Legislation takes force next year to ban animal acts in circuses or on stage, along with mink farms and aquarium shows using dolphins or orcas. Private ownership of wild animals will be outlawed later in the decade. The caged bird market on Paris's Ile de la Cité has been closed down.
Vegetarianism is also gaining momentum, in a country with a deserved reputation for being unwelcoming to it. Nearly two-thirds of the French diet is still non-piscine animal protein, almost twice the global average. But most towns now have vegetarian restaurants, and most menus vegetarian options. Recession has closed traditional restaurants, often replacing them with takeaways directed at the hungry but penurious young. Ironically, here in the south these are especially likely to be veggie, featuring Mediterranean delicacies like falafel, humus, couscous, tabbouleh and flatbreads: not to mention the all-conquering pizza.
So it is the young that are leading the revolt against animal persecution, and the young have a habit of sticking around. The
raseteur's cape has confounded the charge this time, but it'll be back.
Keith Aitken is a journalist, writer and broadcaster
