March is a bad month for bulls in the South of France. It’s the start of both the bull-running season, and also the proper, run-them-through, bullfighting season. This reaches an early climax with the Easter Feria at Arles, April 18-21. And then, naturally, there’s a third sort of season - the annual foaming-at-the-mouth of animal welfarists in general, and anti-bullfighting elements in particular.
These people are, at the very least, determined. A key bunch, the Alliance Anti-Corrida, is headquartered in Nîmes. This is like finding the HQ of the Alliance Anti-Cricket just outside Lords. Nîmes is a - conceivably the - main bullfighting town in France, and the home-grown antis truly get under its skin. “Freedom-killing madmen” is how one literate Nîmois fan described a handful of demonstrators at a low-key corrida a few days ago.
Antis reply with sentiments like: “If torture is an art, all Nazis are called Picasso” - which makes no sense at all, but demonstrates a depth of feeling. I’m not a natural audience for bullfighting, as I’m not for bear-baiting or pulling the legs off cats. But I really fell out with the pursuit when, some little time ago, I went to see Marie-Sara, the blonde and extravagantly beautiful horseback bullfighter, or rejoneadora as they say in aficionado circles. (Not the least irritating aspect of French bullfighting is its smarmily exclusive use of Spanish.)
In the great Roman arena in Nîmes, Marie-Sara was squeezed into the tightest possible suit and handling her horse with bewitching skill and astonishing courage, first to taunt, then to despatch the bull. This was troubling on more levels than I could count (though the two women just along from me were bouncing up and down, crying: “Yes, yess, yesss!”). Later, however, I saw a couple of novilladas, combats in which aspiring bullfighters take on young bulls. At one, in Arles, the young fellow might as well have set about the bull with garden shears for all the artistry on display. Had this killing taken place in an abattoir, the place would have been shut down.
All the stuff I’d been hearing about the cultural complexity of the corrida, the bravura of bulls, the grace of bullfighters and the complicity of both in weaving another elegant strand in the age-old conflict between man and beast... well, all that stuff sounded a bit daft, if not insane, as a bloody corpse was dragged from the arena.
Returning later still to Marie-Sara’s ranch in the Camargue, I asked her: “Women are associated with giving life. Your job involves taking it away. What are your thoughts on that?”
“The question is meaningless,” she said. Then she turned to attend to the daughter, Sara Luna, she’d had with tennis ace Henri Leconte, and I was effectively dismissed. I’d doubtless have dismissed myself after such a question. Subsequently, I’ve heard every pro-bullfighting argument (from “Without us, fighting bulls wouldn’t exist as a breed” to “You’re from Preston; how could you possibly understand?”) without being unduly impressed.
Much of France isn’t, either. The corrida is banned across the nation - on animal cruelty grounds - except in those towns which can demonstrate an unbroken local bullfighting tradition. They’re in the clear, bull-wise. The trouble is that these, exclusively southern, towns include many of the ones near where I live - Nîmes, Arles, Palavas, Béziers - and enthusiasm for the tauromachie ("bull-culture") ripples out across the landscape. And I am terribly keen to fit in.
So it appears fortunate that the tauromachie, like rugby, has two distinct disciplines. Alongside the real, Spanish-inspired bullfighting, there’s the bull-running, or "Course Camarguaise". Rather than the king-sized Spanish fighting bulls, the Course Camarguaise involves the smaller, fleeter Camargue bulls: these can turn on a two-euro coin. And - here’s the key difference - though they get annoyed, they never get killed. Once the bulls are in the arena, fit young men in whites (like cricketers) race about, trying to grab ribbons and baubles festooning the beasts’ horns and foreheads. A successful grab means points, and points mean prizes, and then, after a 15-minute stint, the bull is released and returns to roam the Camargue.
The spin-off of such arena events are the bull games at village festivals. Snorters regularly rampage through narrow streets which, as village fête entertainment goes, is like being pinned down by festive machine-gun fire. The bulls undoubtedly have the upper hoof. All this bull-running is therefore ideal as the alternative refuge for outsiders wishing to slot into local life without witnessing ritual slaughter.
Or should be. But then it all gets a bit too much. From the Camargue and Rhône river westwards, the activity is part of the warp and weft of life. People talk about it until you hope they’ll be hit by a truck. Nuances of bloodlines, and bull behaviour are dissected endlessly. Bulls are stars. Their names on an arena poster pull in the crowds. The best may earn €3,000 for their farmer-owners for their 15-minute turns.
Once they’ve done seven or eight seasons in the arenas, they may well be retired, to live out their natural lives on Camargue spreads. The very best are also honoured by statues. A super 2010 sculpture of Vovo, a bull notable from 1947 to 1954, stands outside the arena in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It’s by British sculptor Peter Eugene Ball who (and this is doubtless insignificant) otherwise specialises in religious work.
Unless you’re born to it, this is overwhelming. It’s no refuge at all. Yet - here’s the thing - the associated activities are terrific. I cannot tell you what exhilaration I’ve had riding out across the Camargue, or the nearby sands, on the white horses, with Camargue cowboys as companions. They know all about bulls and bull-running and bloodlines - that’s their job - but you don’t have to talk about that. You don’t have to talk at all. Similarly, the festivities, the barbecues, the steaks, wine and music - these make some southern nights worth living, despite the certainty of death the following southern morning.
And the same is true of bullfighting itself. Whatever’s happening in the arena during, say, the Easter Feria at Arles or the Whitsun Feria at Nîmes (June 4-9, 2014), the streets beyond are throbbing with bodegas, crowds, dancing, drinking and more Latin life than many Latins can handle. Bullfighting may be the kicker, but that’s finished and now the electricity is available to all.
So, should you be coming to the Camargue or Languedoc this spring or summer, I suggest you do as I do - ignore the bulls and get stuck into the attendant boisterousness. Would this exist without the bulls? I suspect not. There’s a full-bloodedness at large which may require blood. But you’re on holiday. You can accept contradictions.
-------------------
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Bullfighting-when-blood-sport-spoils-a-good-party/
“The question is meaningless,” she said. Then she turned to attend to the daughter, Sara Luna, she’d had with tennis ace Henri Leconte, and I was effectively dismissed. I’d doubtless have dismissed myself after such a question. Subsequently, I’ve heard every pro-bullfighting argument (from “Without us, fighting bulls wouldn’t exist as a breed” to “You’re from Preston; how could you possibly understand?”) without being unduly impressed.
Much of France isn’t, either. The corrida is banned across the nation - on animal cruelty grounds - except in those towns which can demonstrate an unbroken local bullfighting tradition. They’re in the clear, bull-wise. The trouble is that these, exclusively southern, towns include many of the ones near where I live - Nîmes, Arles, Palavas, Béziers - and enthusiasm for the tauromachie ("bull-culture") ripples out across the landscape. And I am terribly keen to fit in.
So it appears fortunate that the tauromachie, like rugby, has two distinct disciplines. Alongside the real, Spanish-inspired bullfighting, there’s the bull-running, or "Course Camarguaise". Rather than the king-sized Spanish fighting bulls, the Course Camarguaise involves the smaller, fleeter Camargue bulls: these can turn on a two-euro coin. And - here’s the key difference - though they get annoyed, they never get killed. Once the bulls are in the arena, fit young men in whites (like cricketers) race about, trying to grab ribbons and baubles festooning the beasts’ horns and foreheads. A successful grab means points, and points mean prizes, and then, after a 15-minute stint, the bull is released and returns to roam the Camargue.
The spin-off of such arena events are the bull games at village festivals. Snorters regularly rampage through narrow streets which, as village fête entertainment goes, is like being pinned down by festive machine-gun fire. The bulls undoubtedly have the upper hoof. All this bull-running is therefore ideal as the alternative refuge for outsiders wishing to slot into local life without witnessing ritual slaughter.
Or should be. But then it all gets a bit too much. From the Camargue and Rhône river westwards, the activity is part of the warp and weft of life. People talk about it until you hope they’ll be hit by a truck. Nuances of bloodlines, and bull behaviour are dissected endlessly. Bulls are stars. Their names on an arena poster pull in the crowds. The best may earn €3,000 for their farmer-owners for their 15-minute turns.
Once they’ve done seven or eight seasons in the arenas, they may well be retired, to live out their natural lives on Camargue spreads. The very best are also honoured by statues. A super 2010 sculpture of Vovo, a bull notable from 1947 to 1954, stands outside the arena in Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It’s by British sculptor Peter Eugene Ball who (and this is doubtless insignificant) otherwise specialises in religious work.
Unless you’re born to it, this is overwhelming. It’s no refuge at all. Yet - here’s the thing - the associated activities are terrific. I cannot tell you what exhilaration I’ve had riding out across the Camargue, or the nearby sands, on the white horses, with Camargue cowboys as companions. They know all about bulls and bull-running and bloodlines - that’s their job - but you don’t have to talk about that. You don’t have to talk at all. Similarly, the festivities, the barbecues, the steaks, wine and music - these make some southern nights worth living, despite the certainty of death the following southern morning.
And the same is true of bullfighting itself. Whatever’s happening in the arena during, say, the Easter Feria at Arles or the Whitsun Feria at Nîmes (June 4-9, 2014), the streets beyond are throbbing with bodegas, crowds, dancing, drinking and more Latin life than many Latins can handle. Bullfighting may be the kicker, but that’s finished and now the electricity is available to all.
So, should you be coming to the Camargue or Languedoc this spring or summer, I suggest you do as I do - ignore the bulls and get stuck into the attendant boisterousness. Would this exist without the bulls? I suspect not. There’s a full-bloodedness at large which may require blood. But you’re on holiday. You can accept contradictions.
-------------------
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/articles/Bullfighting-when-blood-sport-spoils-a-good-party/
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