A loss for the animal-rights crowd…
This month a corrida was staged in Arles, featuring Spanish bullfighters
France’s Constitutional Council, a top legal authority, has rejected a plea from animal rights campaigners to ban bullfighting.
The campaigners wanted the fights categorised as cruelty to animals.
But the judges said the “traditional” fights, held in areas of southern France, “do not harm people’s protected constitutional rights”.
More than 1,000 bulls are killed annually in French bullfights, the AFP news agency reports.
Although bullfighting originated in neighbouring Spain, it took root in France a century and a half ago. Fights – known as corridas in Spain – are especially popular in the Nimes and Arles areas.
It’s now just as much part of their culture as in Spain.
Animal rights groups are now considering taking the issue to the European Court of Human Rights, our correspondent reports.
‘Human rights’? If the ECHR hears the case, they should rename themselves.
