CORRIDA. While the “Caron” bill on the prohibition of bullfighting experienced a first setback, what does the legislation say on the matter? The law regulates the organization as much as the provision is vague.
But what exactly does the bullfighting law say? How is it framed? In France, in the cities which organize bullfights, the legal authorization is only a sentence, written in article 521-1 of the Penal Code since 1951, condemning “serious abuse or acts of cruelty to animals.” While various penalties are provided, “the provisions of this article are not applicable to bullfighting where an unbroken local tradition can be invoked. Nor are they applicable to cockfighting in localities where an unbroken tradition can be invoked. established.” It is these two small lines that today allow bullfighting to continue to live in some localities.
Where is bullfighting allowed in France?
In France, bullfighting is authorized, and organized, in the south. Thus, Arles, Bayonne, Béziers, Dax, Mont-de-Marsan, Nîmes, Vic-Fezensac are the main towns of French bullfighting. But many other cities organize bullfights, like Aire-sur-l’Adour, Chateaurenard, Céret, Istres, Lunel, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and dozens of others.
In 2000, the Court of Appeal of Toulouse had delimited the practice geographically: “It can only be disputed in the south of France between the country of Arles and the Basque country, between scrubland and the Mediterranean, between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, in Provence, Languedoc, Catalonia, Gascony, Landes and the Basque Country there is a strong bullfighting tradition which manifests itself in the organization of complete bullfighting shows on a regular basis in the large squares benefiting from permanent adapted structures and more occasionally in the small ones. places on the occasion in particular of local or votive festivals.
How to determine that the bullfighting tradition is “unbroken”?
The legality of bullfighting does not hold much in France, simply “when an unbroken local tradition can be invoked.” But how is it determined? On several occasions, the question has arisen before the courts. Anne-Sophie Laguens, lawyer at the Paris bar, detailed in The Obsin 2012, the contours of these vague terms:
- A habit of a few years could not constitute a tradition (Nîmes, December 2, 1965, JCP 1966 II 14654). The court must necessarily note the existence of an ancient custom, transmitted from generation to generation, and formed of a continuous practice and not of isolated or more or less intermittent facts (t. cor. Bordeaux, April 27, 1989, JCP 1989 II 21344).
- Local tradition must be understood as a tradition that exists in a demographic set determined by a common culture, the same habits, the same aspirations and affinities, “the same way of feeling things and being enthusiastic about them”, the same system of collective representations, the same mentalities (Bordeaux, July 11, 1989, JCP 1989 II 21344).
However, according to the judgment rendered by the Court of Appeal of Toulouse, the tradition is not intimately linked to the proper organization of bullfights but “is also manifested by the life of local bullfighting clubs, the organization of artistic and cultural events around bullfighting and the organized or unorganized movement of local aficionados to neighboring or more distant active places.
In this case, this therefore makes it impossible, since 1951, to organize bullfights in towns that have never organized bullfights or not for many years, like Toulouse which has nevertheless, for very long years , had its bullring and hosted bullfights.