Bullfighting Dustup Has France on Guard

Government bans violent protest ad but lets festivals continue
By Wesley Oliver,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 18, 2007 3:16 PM CDT

Animal activists and bullfighting fans in France are butting heads over an anti-bullfighting ad that shows bulls being speared and slaughtered. The French government banned the ad as too violent, prompting cries of hypocrisy from a well organized group of celebrities and dignitaries who have been protesting the gruesome "corrida" Spanish style of fighting. 

But the Independent reports that the activists may have already won simply by embroiling the entire nation in a once-marginal debate over the sport. “La corrida” is technically banned in France but is allowed in areas that can prove an unbroken “tradition” of it—though it's been bleeding out into the entirety of the South. (More France stories.)

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