Bullfighting Culture and Traditions: Interview with Thomas Pagnon, President of the Youth Union of Provence and Languedoc

The Youth Union of Provence and Languedoc, of which you are president, is organizing the 8th “L’Authentique” day for the defense of traditions, Saturday November 18 in La Churascaia. What are your goals ?

The first thing is to promote and pass on bullfighting culture and traditions to future generations. Within the Youth Union, we also expand to rural traditions such as hunting, fishing, gastronomy, viticulture and agriculture. Because we realize every day that we are attacked by the same people who are against all these ways of life which are not theirs. And want to impose their “Parisian”, very urban vision on us. To do this, we really want to show that we are proud of our art of living.

Society is evolving, particularly in terms of taking animal welfare into account. Do you hear it?

Of course we hear it. But when we see that the city of Strasbourg, run by ecologists, has banned hunting on its land and is now obliged to ask hunters to organize hunts to control wild boars because it is invaded, that’s when even a height. These people gradually realize reality and the extent to which they are disconnected from it. We are aware of animal welfare: look in the herds, the ganaderias, how the bulls, the horses are raised. If, tomorrow, I transform into an animal, I would like to be a bull rather than a cat or a dog in an apartment in Paris.

It is rather the way in which certain bulls finish, killed in an arena, which is often debated.

They are fighting bulls, created and bred to fight in an arena. Who live outdoors, for 4-5 years. It’s a fight between life and death against a bullfighter. If we remove the herds, the bulls, everything goes up in the air. Our biodiversity, our ecology and our tourism will no longer exist. Each year, 7% of a farm’s livestock is killed for bullfights. But if the bullfights are stopped, all the livestock will disappear.

Do you perceive an attraction among new generations for the traditions that you defend?

For several years, I have been impressed and very happy with the attraction of young people towards arenas, bullfighting or even hunting or fishing. More and more young people are going to the arenas. During the bullfights, there are stands dedicated to young people, the “tendido young people”, and within a few weeks, they are full. There is real interest, it’s a very good sign.

It is perhaps less obvious, on the other hand, to find a successor to take over the agricultural and livestock operators.

I think there must be motivated young people, but taking over a farm these days is not easy…

Let’s go back to Saturday. Why meet at Churascaïa?

Because it is a legendary place created in 1965 by Jean Lafon. We all have stories from our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents about this place in the middle of the Camargue, where the herdsmen came on horseback, tying their beasts under the pines in front of the Chu before going to the aperitif. It really is a place where everyone comes together.

How did you put together the program for the day?

We want to keep this meeting of the three bullfights: Camargue, Landes and Spanish. We will have young people from Landes who will come to do a Landes race in the morning, with spreaders and jumpers. For the Camargue part, the young people of the Youth Union will shave. And a young man from the Nîmes bullfighting school, Clovis Germain, will do the trick. Afterwards, we will have the abrivados, with three herds, representing Hérault, Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône (Tommy, Devaux and Lescot). And something new this year with a roussataïo. The idea is to offer a cultural moment in the morning for young and old. It is truly a moment of exchange and conviviality around the bull, where all generations, all social classes are mixed.