Photos: Cyclist Thibaut Pinot Calls For an End to Bullfighting in New PETA France Campaign

For Immediate Release:
July 17, 2024

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

“End bullfighting”—this is the message from French cyclist Thibaut Pinot in a brand-new campaign for PETA France, which is being shown around Nîmes via a promotional bike to coincide with stage 16 of the Tour de France. The ad juxtaposes an image of Pinot on a bike raising his arms in victory, reading, “This Is Sport,” with that of a bull—whose horns mirror the position of the cyclist’s arms—in an arena during a bullfight with the message, “This Is Torture,” to remind everyone that unlike the impressive Tour de France, bullfighting has nothing to do with sportsmanship or valor.

Photos are available from PETA France here and here.

“Bullfighting is anything but sport. It’s a macabre spectacle of the torture and killing of a terrified animal,” says PETA Vice President for Europe, the U.K., and Australia Mimi Bekhechi. “Thibaut Pinot’s campaign for PETA France highlights the difference between an impressive display of endurance and ritualized slaughter and reminds people around the world that bullfighting has no place in modern society.”

During a bullfight, several bulls—each a sensitive individual who feels fear and pain and values his life just as we do ours—are tortured, one after the other. Gripped by terror, agony, and confusion over not knowing why he’s being subjected to this torment, the bull tries to escape but can’t. Assailants on horses chase him around the arena and drive lances into his back and neck before others plunge banderillas into his back. Eventually, when the bull becomes weak from blood loss, a matador tries to finish him off by plunging a sword into his lungs or, if that fails, cutting his spinal cord with a knife.

PETA France has written to the organizers of the Tour de France asking that the tour not pass through towns or cities where bullfights still take place so as not to turn a blind eye to these bloody practices from another age, which tarnish France’s image on the international stage. The group points out that 75% of the French population wants these bloody spectacles to be banned.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.