Bullfight suspended in south-west France commune
Event stopped after organisers failed to prove the presence of an ongoing tradition of bullfighting locally
To gain legal permission for bullfights to go ahead, proponents have to prove a ‘local uninterrupted tradition’ in the area
Stefan Rotter/Shutterstock.
A planned bullfight has been suspended in a commune in south-west France, in what animal welfare campaigners are hailing as a victory.
The administrative court in Bordeaux suspended the bullfight in La Brède (Gironde), after being asked by two animal welfare associations to consider the case.
The court judged on May 12 that there was insufficient bullfighting culture in the Bordeaux region to justify the fight, as partly proven by the “low public attendance” at bullfights in the area. The court added that there were serious doubts about the legality of any fight in the area.
The fight in question had been scheduled to take place on June 20.
‘Uninterrupted tradition’?
To gain legal permission for bullfights to go ahead (in the event that they are contested), bullfight proponents have to prove that they have a “local uninterrupted tradition” of bullfighting.
If they cannot prove this, and the bullfight goes ahead anyway, under article 521-1 of the Penal code, they can be fined up to €450,000, and jailed for three years, for “serious abuse” and “acts of cruelty” towards animals.
La Brède has held a bullfight every year for the past 25 years, except in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid, and 2025, due to “budgetary and attendance constraints”, the mairie said.
The case was brought to court by two anti-bullfighting animal welfare groups: the Alliance Anticorrida, and One Voice. Both used the “insufficient bullfighting culture” defence to justify their dispute. “We are in an isolated area…where bullfighting culture is dying out,” said the lawyer for the Alliance Anticorrida.
Yet, La Brède mayor Michel Dufranc, a bullfighting enthusiast and lawyer, argued in court that “I never said that La Brède was giving up its bullfighting culture”. He denied that the lack of a bullfight in those three years meant that the commune’s bullfighting history had been interrupted.
The decision comes just months after the administrative court of appeal in Toulouse upheld a ban on a bullfight taking place in the municipality of Pérols (Hérault). The town attempted to organise a bullfight in 2023, after not having held one in the area for more than 20 years.
After that decision, in October 2025, Claire Starozinski, chair of the Alliance Anticorrida, said that the association would “ensure strict compliance with the court’s ruling…which will set a legal precedent”.
