Taurine torpor: bullfighting’s non-fatal French cousin fights for survival

Picasso and Hemingway believed folk sports like the course camarguaise were the height of European culture. Facing financial struggles, rowdy spectators and animal rights concerns, can its practitioners keep the custom alive?In an arena in the southern French village of Raphèle-lès-Arles on a torpidly hot July afternoon, a young black bull paws the floor next to the exit door. Eight raseteurs – the white-clad runners whose job is to seize tokens fixed to the animal – ye