More than 15,000 people are expected at Place de la Comédie this Saturday from 10 a.m. in Montpellier to defend the bouvine and well beyond this bullfighting tradition of the south of France: rurality.
While there is no killing of the animal in this ancestral practice, some ecologists and animalists would like to ban it.
“There is a political movement, which I describe as punitive ecology, made up of elected animalists and ecologists who want to question whole sections of our traditions and our way of life
, Laurent Jaoul, mayor of Saint-Brès, co-organizer of the rally which must take around noon so as not to overshadow the demonstration against pensions.
We say it clearly, in Montpellier there is a sectarian and punitive ecology here.
The anger of is not ready to fall.
After hunting in 2021 and fishing in 2022, the attacks that have occurred in recent months against the bullfighting world correspond to the straw that broke the camel’s back
”.
Not content with having been able to put an end to bullfighting, these same people attacked the Camargue races in a column published on January 7 in
Le Monde
.
Rather than the abolition of bullfighting games and shows, the text, supported among others by the elected animalist party of Montpellier Eddine Aritzegui, suggests reforming these traditions deemed barbaric, to put an end to the "culture of violence
and suffering”
which, according to them,
“results in harm to animals or humans”
.
And to conclude:
“We simply ask that the legislator take up the question.
»
What stir up not only the wrath of the many lovers of bullfighting culture but also rural people who feel attacked by rurban people who want to impose their conception of life even if it means flouting traditions.
“This demonstration is an epidermal reaction, against these ecologists and animalists who, because they do not like certain hobbies or traditions, want to ban them
, affirms Thierry Coste, secretary general of the Alliance des sports et loisirs de nature, including the French federation des courses camarguaises is a member.
This close friend of Emmanuel Macron had dinner this Friday with the prefect of Hérault and is present this Saturday at the Comédie.
It's incomprehensible in the bouvine, we don't talk about killing.
By wanting to ban it, we are attacking livestock farming, rurality, without forgetting the impact in terms of biodiversity and the hundreds of thousands of people who come to see these Camargue races and those who live from them
.
In addition to herdsmen, herdsmen, hunters, fishermen and anonymous people of all kinds, 500 Camargue horses will parade to accompany this march for rural life.
"
We want to reaffirm our pride in response to political thrusts
," explains Thomas Pagnon, president of the Union of Youth of Provence and Languedoc and co-organizer of the march,
"it's a gathering that unites around a common culture. .
We know each other thanks to the bulls.
We find in this culture a living environment, shared values, mutual respect and respect for the animal
”.
Read alsoSimon Casas: “Bullfighting is a ritual, a liturgy, a culture and an art”
"Our culture is still threatened by the same ideologues
"
, believes for his part Frédéric Pastor, assistant to the festivities and bullfighting of the city of Nîmes, who cites a large similar march in 2021, "
on the occasion of the centenary of a legal victory against the SPA”
.
In its forum, the animalist collective also insists on the urgency of reforming the practices of bullfighting while the French Federation of Manadiers intends to formulate an inscription on the intangible heritage of Unesco, in partnership with practitioners of bullfighting activities in the southern Catalonia and Tuscany.
Post-bullfighting context
In fact, the subject of the debate essentially concerns
“the archaic practices”
pointed out by the co-signatories of the platform.
At the top of the list: the multiple sterilization techniques that are the "
tweezer force
"
, "removal of the testicles
" and "
rubber band sterilization
" and which cause
"a high level of suffering".
As for the players in bullfighting culture, Thomas Pagnon rejects: “
We do local anesthesia, we have evolved with science, of course!
Animal welfare, we think about it every day!
»
Even environmentalists condemn the attitude of the authors of this forum.
“They show a total ignorance of the subject,
protests Claire Starozinski, president of the Anticorrida Alliance.
This platform is very far from reality and constitutes an insult to the members of the Camargue.
We are very far from the “torture, abuse and acts of cruelty” claimed by the Animalist Party!
The Anticorrida Alliance is the only animal protection association in France which has been able to have the
bull rope banned
in the Hérault and the Bouches-du-Rhône and has condemned
unworthy
herdsmen to criminal proceedings concerning bistournage, that is- that is to say the live castration of bulls in collaboration with the Work of assistance to the animals of
“.
The post-bullfighting context, whose debates had resulted in the abandonment of the bill on the abolition of the practice, on the initiative of Aymeric Caron, does not favor appeasement.
"
They hit a wall in November
(with the proposed law on the abolition of bullfighting, editor's note)
, two months later, they go to the bouvine
", details Thomas Pagnon,
"everything is linked, if they win on the bullfighting games, it will soon be hunting
", wants to believe the young man.
For his part, Eddine Aritzegui points to a snobbery of the actors of rurality who gather today: “
As soon as we denounce acts of cruelty to animals, we are accused of being disconnected Parisian sores.
Animalists for many,
“Explains the ecologist, who believes that local elected officials contribute to the conflagration of the subject.
Read also "Why I teach young people to become a bullfighter"
Two points of view clash, systematically rejecting the arguments of the other camp by pointing out ignorance of the subject or contempt for the way of life.
For Thomas, the question of the castration of bulls is even the occasion for an even greater debate, the
"negation of a whole art of living, a living environment
", he says, "
that animalists refuse to see and want to change
.
“There is a social and cultural barrier between Montpellier and the rest of the region,”
he explains.
This is also why he is walking this Saturday: "
so that people understand that beef culture is also the one that fills people's plates
"
.
Frédéric Pastor, cautious, prefers to describe the debates as a “
storm in a teacup
”.
At this stage, more than a month after the environmentalists' forum, and while tempers are heating up without any bill having been made for the moment, the Montpellier march essentially intends to embody, according to him , the culture, the way of life and the values of rurality.