two hundred and eighteen elected “of different sensitivities and territories”including Christophe Castaner and Bruno Retailleau, sign on the site of Sunday newspaper (JDD) a platform to defend bullfighting and other « traditions » in front of “ecototalitarianism”.
Defenders and opponents of bullfighting mobilized on Saturday across France, before a vote by the National Assembly on a bill, tabled by MP Aymeric Caron (La France insoumise), aimed at abolishing this practice. Rejected Wednesday in committee, it has little chance of succeeding. His examination in the Hemicycle is in principle scheduled for Thursday.
“To ban bullfighting is to ban a culture and humiliate some of our fellow citizens. We will not accept it”write the signatories of the forum, parliamentarians or local elected officials.
“Allow everyone to live their culture”
“From the Christmas tree to the hunt, from the friendly barbecue to the children’s dreams of becoming an aviator, we do not want to ban, standardize, suppress, erase”, they write. They promise to be “fierce defenders of freedom, and resolute opponents of eco-totalitarianism, respecting the law, to allow everyone to live their culture”.
“We believe in progress, in the fight against global warming, in the defense of the animal condition, and we are working on it; but this should not be used as an alibi to erase our cultural singularities, our regional markers, to erase the diversity of what we are, to flout the respect for others and the fraternity which founds our Republic “they say.
Among the signatories, the former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner and the boss of the senators Les Républicains, Bruno Retailleau. But also a number of senators – including the president of the RDPI group, with a Renaissance majority, François Patriat and the vice-president of the Senate, Nathalie Delattre (RDSE, with a radical majority). Several deputies, including the general rapporteur for the budget, Jean-René Cazeneuve (Renaissance), and the president of the MoDem group, Jean-Paul Mattei, as well as presidents of regions – like Renaud Muselier -, of departments, or even mayors have also signed this forum.