Emmanuel Macron wants to depoliticize sport. Bullfighting is a sport. Emmanuel Macron wants to depoliticize bullfighting. That is what the government is trying to convey in this case. Bullfighting is not a sport. It’s an aberration. An abomination. An anachronism.
For a long time, the animal issue remained a domain reserved for conservatives of all stripes. A non-political issue. Almost common sense. Understanding Emmanuel Macron’s common sense. “It is part of French cultural traditions”argues the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau.
Except that bullfighting has nothing of the French tradition. This is “ an import product ». As the historian Fabrice d’Almeida recalls, it was through Napoleon III’s wife, the Spanish empress Eugénie de Montijo, that bullfights returned (after being banned) and flourished in France until 1884, date of its prohibition by Waldeck-Rousseau.
It wasn’t until 1951 that bullfighting was again a authorized practice. The traditional argument collapses. Then comes the ecological argument. And that of the living. Morning guest of France Inter, 1969e The French matador, Raphaël Raucoule (22 years old!), believes in it: “We don’t just defend the bull by coming to defend bullfighting. We come to defend a way of life, a biodiversity.»
The left-wing bill that aims today to ban bullfights allows for a debate to be imposed.
And add: “Today we talk about the death of the bull. But what we do is defend life. Don’t defend death. We have a deep respect for the animal . »Discourse is earth. And one would almost be seduced and dazzled by so much passion, if it were not precisely a question of death. Worse: staging death. Look at them, these pictures of flags planted on the bull’s body to cut its neck muscles. Watch as the beast’s blood gushes from its mouth until it bleeds to death. Creepy!
For a long time, the left abandoned the animal suffering. Since the 2017 presidential election, the issue has become a political object. So much the better. The left-wing bill that today aims to ban bullfights (1), even rejected by the government, allows a debate to be imposed.
A debate that cannot remain confidential. Whether or not we attended the bullfights.“Those who criticize bullfighting are often people who have not seen it », launched the head of the LR group in the Assembly, Olivier Marleix, in the public Senate. We are tempted to reply that those who have seen too often are people who no longer see suffering and savagery. Indifferent to horror.
(1) Debated this Wednesday, November 24, 2022 in the Assembly.