One Voice infiltrates a bullfighting school for children in France!

Young bulls to give "first hand" experience to children and adolescents

A calf that is considered as mere "material" of a second level will be taunted around in the vicinity of Nîmes for more than twenty minutes, by a young person who has not yet mastered the act of Corrida (bullfighting).

The sword will be put in and out several times into the back of the young bull, which eventually collapses. In the last seconds of his consciousness, he will feel a dagger sink into his neck, his head shaking in all directions. He will spill his blood in a few minutes, an eternity to the one suffering, after trying in vain to escape his fate, gripped with anguish and without understanding why he was eventually betrayed by his guardians ...

An extracurricular activity like any other?

Children are taught all year round in these schools using wheeled carriages to practice the gestures: muletas, cape work, wooden spikes and sword work. At the end of the year as a reward they can in the arena put to death very young bulls.

One can start at the age of 6 to attend these schools. At the age when one begins to read and write, one can learn at the same time the B-A-BA of bullfighting. They learn that torturing a living animal by planting spears and then pushing a blade into its body is acceptable and expected. We can witness the long and painful killing of these beings, whose sensibility is recognized, and on whom these cruelties are exerted... except here. 

Psychologists around the world are worried about the impact it can have on brain development and empathy of children, to receive these conflicting signals from adults around them: we must not hurt others and we must applaud those who kill the bulls in the arena ... It is an education of sadism, and this has deleterious repercussions on their psyche.

An unprecedented survey at the heart of these schools: unedited testimonials

An interview with the president of these bullfighting schools, teachers and aficionados, images of calves killed by young men, under the eyes of children ... All our images show the true face of bullfighting in France: we teach insensitivity to the suffering of another from an early age.

Among the testimonies collected, parents who offered a bull to their child so that he could kill it. Who would do this with another animal and in other circumstances? And outside of this environment? How is it possible to encourage this, a killing by a minor, which is possible in the case of a rented and privatized arena...

Young bulls not put to death will often be used several times. But on the images, we see the incredulity of the poor calf, its exhaustion. His refusal for aggression. The refusal to "fight", in short.

Whether they fear for themselves or do not want to hurt living beings, children must obey. It’s written into the Bullfighting school rules. But one of the mothers of these students confided in our team without knowing that it was recorded, that after the killing of his first bull, her son stopped bullfighting for a year. He was still in shock. 

Ban these schools. One Voice and its partners Anymal, CRAC Europe, FLAC and No to Corrida have written a joint petition calling for the immediate cessation of these bullfighting practices considered as torture. To give us more weight in this process, for the calves and for the children, please sign! 

 1 - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/09/un-call-ban-children-bullfights