Protest as French town stages bullfight
Date: 03-Sep-02
Country: FRANCE
Author: Nicolas Fichot
Waving banners that said "No to torture, no to bullfights" and "Carcassonne is not a bloody city", a crowd of around 200 people gathered as the corrida started to the music of famous French opera "Carmen".
Inside the arena some 2,000 bullfight "afficionados" cheered the three torreros.
The bullfight has unleashed protests from animal welfare activists including former film star Brigitte Bardot.
A small bomb exploded overnight near the arena but the homemade device caused no damage.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack but Bernard Castans, head of the bullfighting club organising the show, was prompt to react.
"All these opposition movements are more than regrettable and when there are bombs that could have killed then we can talk of a murderous fanaticism," he told Reuters.
In a case that has attracted worldwide attention, a local civil court overruled on Friday objections from campaigners seeking to halt the Spanish-style bullfight, the first in the southwestern town since 1954.
Two separate animal welfare groups had filed a suit seeking to block the bullfight on the grounds that it was not a local custom. They have appealed Friday's ruling.
While torturing animals is illegal under French law, bullfights, or corridas, are permitted in areas that have an unbroken local tradition of ritually slaughtering bulls.
Raymond Chesa, the mayor of Carcassonne, has defended his decision to authorise the planned novillada, a fight involving young bulls, on the grounds that the area has a strong Spanish immigrant tradition.