The Montpellier administrative court bans a bullfight in Palavas-les-Flots

The administrative court of Montpellier ordered Thursday, September 24, the mayor of Palavas-les-Flots (Hérault) to prohibit the holding of a bullfight with the killing of bulls, planned in this city where there has not been one for ten years.

Animal rights NGOs, led by the Alliance Anticorrida association, requested this measure on Wednesday in an emergency procedure (referral), arguing in particular about this long interruption. Indeed, if article 521-1 of the Penal Code punishes “serious abuse and acts of cruelty towards animals”, it allows an exception for “bull races when an uninterrupted local tradition can be invoked”.

For NGOs, the decade of interruption means that the exception to article 521 is not applicable to Palavas. The town's lawyer, on the contrary, estimated Wednesday at the hearing that the bullfighting history of the town and the Camargue races which take place there each year demonstrated the permanence of this tradition. But the judge noted “the diversity of forms of bullfighting which can constitute culturally distinct practices and thus correspond to different traditions” and considered that “given the absence of an uninterrupted local tradition of organizing bullfighting events with the killing of bulls (...) the bullfight scheduled for October 10, 2026 cannot fall within the exception provided for”.

He therefore “enjoined the mayor of Palavas-les-Flots to use his police powers to prevent the bullfight from taking place”. In a press release, the president of the Anticorrida Alliance “welcomes this new decision”, after bans for the same reason of absence of local tradition pronounced by the courts in Pérols, a town close to Palavas-les-Flots, in 2025, and La Brède (Gironde) in May 2026. The town hall of Palavas and its lawyer could not immediately be reached by AFP.