Debate on the proposal Law on Abolition of BullfightsRepresented by France Insumisa (LFI), the French Parliament is being agitated and divided between different parties.
Some formations, such as the Socialist Party and the National Group (extreme right), have granted freedom of vote to their MPs. In fact, individual members of Marine Le Pen’s party have said that individually they will vote for the proposal, while French Communist Party National Secretary Fabien Rousselli, in the progressive coalition Nupes, has opposed it. Renaissance, Emmanuel Macron’s party, also gave its MPs the freedom to vote, although the government opposes the legislative proposal.
France’s criminal code already contains a measure that prevents any act of cruelty to animals, but the derogation still allows bullfighting in 50 towns in the south of the country, where there is an “unbroken local tradition”.according to the text. The bill’s promoter, Paris MP Insumisa Aymeric Caron from France, explains in an interview with elDiario.es that the challenge now is to end this special regime.
Caron and other defenders of the measure emphasize that it has huge popular support among citizens – a recent poll that prepared Ifop-Fiducial, notes that 74% The French are in favor of prohibition. The outcome of the vote, which is to be held in the assembly on Thursday, is unclear.
Initially, the text had a lot of support, including among members of other parties, but in recent weeks there has been a significant mobilization against it. Are you still optimistic about the vote?
I can’t make a diagnosis now, we have to wait. Democratic logic says it should pass: according to some polls, nine out of ten French people support the abolition of bullfighting. And when I talk to other MPs – even those who are not from my group – I see a willingness to support the vote or at least not oppose it.
The question now is the weight of the weight beans Because they have been carrying out important disinformation work for three weeks to influence the vote. There is a lack of communication on this issue. The representatives of the world of bullfighting did not want to participate in the assembly, but they went directly to talk to the deputies. One even held a kind of conference for the members of the national association.
How do you explain that an event with such popular support is so difficult to prove?
When I proposed this issue to my group – in fact, I am a representative of a party called “Ecological Revolution for Life”, registered in the parliamentary group of France Insoumise – there was surprise. They considered it anecdotal because it affected a few animals and only some regions, and thought there were other, more important problems, even in the animal cause. However, Thursday is the parliamentary space where our group can put their texts to a direct vote; This structure means that this is not a space for complex debate. This is a very simple topic: for or against, hours of discussion are not necessary. In addition, it is very powerful symbolically and, as I said, public opinion is almost unanimous, especially among young people.
It is possible that there will be no vote as it is placed fourth on the agenda by its LFI group, in a session that cannot extend past midnight.
The previous LFI parliamentary spaces allowed four to six texts to be voted on, so in theory this shouldn’t be a problem. What can happen is that other parties try to interfere with both the previous three texts and this text. But this would be a complete sacrifice of legal rules. France must vote on whether to allow animal torture for the entertainment of a few. Because this is a bullfight. If they did not vote for the text, it would be a terrible sign of the failure of democracy in this country.
The text directly refers to bullfighting, but there are other shows in cities outside of the bullring that are associated with bullfighting. Does the law mean to ban it?
The text refers directly to bullfighting as understood in France and Spain and excludes, for example, competitions held in France in the Landes or the Camargue. [concursos de recortes] in which the bull is not treated badly. Because the fundamental question is that. As for the rest of the practice, French law already prohibits any type of show in which animals are harmed.
In Portugal, where bullfighting takes place without death in the arena (although the bulls are killed outside the arena), It is suggested that we move to a version of bullfighting that excludes blood.
I have nothing against having shows that raise questions about our relationship with animals, civilization, wildlife, culture, etc. It could be a representation of the arena between a man and a bull or reinvent the bullfight with the technical means available today (virtual, etc.). All I want is to stop torturing animals.
One of the arguments used by MPs opposing the law is that it is an example of how the urban French – particularly Parisians – want to impose their vision on the rest of the country.
By such reasoning, all rural communes in France should be autonomous. Everyone could do what they wanted: some could torture bulls, some could drive 180 km/h on the road… Individual decisions are subject to the law and actions have consequences. Because in fact bullfighting is already banned on French territory and was banned because we believe that according to our moral standards, it goes too far in the suffering we inflict on animals. And I say I will go too far because the abuse continues in other sectors such as intensive livestock farming or hunting.
There came a time when we considered that animals are sentient beings and torturing them is not humane, so they started to pass animal welfare laws in France and other countries. All civilized countries protect their animals because there is a connection between non-human animal suffering and human suffering, the same logic applies. However, torture sessions continue to be organized in France today, as exceptions were made in certain cities and regions. The fact that citizens of my country are exempt from this law and torture animals is a problem for me.
Beyond the bullfight, this question of rural-urban territorial fracturing exists, even defiant of France.
It is true that there are members of the LFI party, quite the media, who confirm that we have a problem, that we are weak in rural areas, that we do not understand the sensitivities of certain areas… But I reject this view. , for me this approach is a caricature. It may be true that we have less fighting power to explain our program, but the city-to-city dichotomy is almost non-existent, the reality is more confused, more blurred.
On the one hand, cities are expanding, as is the medium-sized population; On the other hand, more and more citizens are leaving the city to settle in the countryside, because they want a different way of life, because they want healthy food. And among them many will find themselves with practices such as extensive agriculture with pesticides, hunters and increasing built-up area, more shopping centers and urbanization. And this is not the field they want.
There is also Debates that arise during protests ‘Yellow vests, in which they try to challenge the purchasing power and the state of emergency Climate change, a likely conflict between citizens concerned about the end concerned about the moon and the end of the world.
I am a radical environmentalist: before creating my party, I had already written books on this topic, with a specific vision. In fact, I created my own party because I felt that Europe Ecology-The Greens was not radical enough. And now I’m working hand in hand with Francia Insumisa, which is a group more known for social issues. The fact that we are together means that we have learned that these two struggles are closely related, that one cannot be done without the other. The same mechanisms operate during the exploitation of nature or the exploitation of the worker.
In this view of ecology, Anti-speciesism. What is this theory about?
This is a thought that fights against the prevailing idea in the West, which says that humans are superior to other creatures and that this gives them special rights, that we can do things to animals that we would not do to humans. This idea will be a species. An example of this could be bullfights, but also the terrible conditions of some animals in certain types of farming. The idea is not to say, “We’re going to treat all animals as humans,” but if an animal is going through stress or pain that is unacceptable to us as humans, it’s not okay to allow it. experience
Source: El Diario
