And others tied to the storied tradition face hard choices

matador usually plunges his sword deep between the bull’s shoulders; then the dead animal is dragged from the ring. In some rare instances, the public spares a bull’s life by asking for it to be “pardoned” for its bravery.

In 2013, after the global financial crisis also significantly hurt the bullfighting sector, the conservative government at the time came to its defence by declaring bullfighting part of Spain’s cultural patrimony. This declaration was also a response to the growing separatist movement in Catalonia, whose regional parliament voted to ban bullfighting in 2010.

Idled by the coronavirus, several leading matadors have recently waded more vigorously into Spain’s debate over bullfighting, both on social media and on the streets.

“We now have a government in Spain that sees the coronavirus as an opportunity to remove bullfighting altogether,” said Andres Roca Rey, a Peruvian matador who joined a demonstration in Seville on June 13, when defenders of bullfighting rallied in several Spanish cities.

The government, however, insists that it is not mistreating the bullfighting sector. Faced with calls for his resignation,

Spain’s culture minister, Jose Manuel Rodriguez Uribes, met with bullfighting representatives June 17 in Madrid.

Afterward, the industry’s officials said they had received the minister’s promise that bullfighting would be excluded from a planned law that would protect animals against mistreatment.

Still, the tensions are simmering. Last month, Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s deputy prime minister and leader of the far-left party Unidas Podemos, said in Parliament, “It makes me very uncomfortable that something is promoted as a cultural practice that I cannot avoid seeing as delivering a lot of pain to an animal in a show for the enjoyment of people.”

Most opinion polls suggest that Spanish society is deeply split over bullfighting, just as it is increasingly fragmented over politics.

Roca Rey, who is 23 and one of the younger stars of bullfighting, said that 16 of his 17 fights last year in Spain sold out.

Some younger fans, he said, are probably drawn to the ring because it is such a powerful Spanish tradition.

“I think many younger people now want to identify with their country, and they understand that watching bullfighting is about embracing the culture of Spain, and certainly not about seeing an animal suffer,” he said in an interview on an estate that he bought this year from a descendant of William Randolph Hearst, the American publishing tycoon. Juan Pedro Domecq, deputy president of the union of Spanish breeders, said Spain’s government, no matter its political leanings, had “a constitutional obligation to support bullfighting because it is the backbone of Spanish culture.”

“The coronavirus hit a sector that was already in a complicated economic situation, reliant exclusively on spectators and without sponsorship or television revenues,” Domecq said.

Advertising revenues have evaporated, he said, because “no sponsor wants to face the fierce attacks of animal activists.”

Since the lockdown, some animal welfare associations have asked the government to disburse funds to help those working in bullfighting find alternative jobs.

Many workers are contractually tied to a specific matador, making it hard for them to get jobs elsewhere. Even so, most of the support staff earn money only when there is a fight.

Ana Belen Martin, a politician from Pacma, a party that defends animal welfare, said bullfighting had been declining for more than a decade and that it was heading for a natural death, with or without COVID-19.

Last year, 1,424 bull fiestas were held in Spain, down from 2,684 in 2009, according to government figures.

But Martin said the COVID-19 crisis should not become a reason to extend a lifeline to bullfighting.

“This is the culture of our past, not that of the society we want to build, focused on compassion and empathy rather than on people who applaud while watching an animal agonizing,” she said.

“Younger people now want to identify with their country, and they understand that watching bullfighting is about embracing the culture of Spain.” ROCA REY 23-YEAR-OLD BULLFIGHTER