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Top ten images: Running of the bulls

Four people were gored by bulls in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona on Friday morning as the world-famous San Fermín festival moved towards its climax.

Top ten images: Running of the bulls
Getting the horn: a participant in the San Fermín festival is gored by a half-tonne fighting bull. Photo: Ander Gillenea/AFP

Ever since Hemmingway used the nine-day festival as the backdrop of his 1926 novel 'The Sun Also Rises', international visitors have flocked to take part in Pamplona's festival of San Fermín, or the 'running of the bulls'.

Half-tonne fighting animals thunder through the cobbled streets each morning while hundreds of runners, most wearing traditional white clothing and red neckerchiefs, scramble to avoid getting caught on their horns.

Check out The Local's gallery of the best images of the running of the bulls 2013

"It was thrilling, unforgettable, amazing – I don't think I have ever felt so exhilarated in my life," 26-year-old American law student Dale Carpenter told news agency AFP this year.

In a rapid-fire charge through Pamplona's narrow streets, the bulls arrive at the city's bullring.

Then, later in the afternoon, they are killed by matadors before their meat is served up in some of Pamplona's best restaurants.

But the hugely popular festival is fiercely criticized by animal rights advocates.

“Every shared tapa, every cerveza, every booked hotel room and balcony bolsters the killing,” wrote British poet Benjamin Zephania in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

Check out The Local's gallery of the colour, the clashes and the outcry at this year's San Fermín.

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FESTIVAL

France’s Fête de la musique ‘will go ahead, with masks and a curfew’

France's famous summer music festival the Fête de la musique will go ahead, but with health restrictions in place, says the culture minister.

France's Fête de la musique 'will go ahead, with masks and a curfew'
Photo: ABDULMONAM EASSA / AFP

Culture minister Roselyn Bachelot, taking part in a Q&A session with readers of French newspaper le Parisien, confirmed that the annual summer festival will go ahead this year on its usual date of June 21st.

The festival date is normally marked with thousands of events across France, from concerts in tiny villages to huge open-air events in big cities and street-corner gigs in local neighbourhoods.

Last year the festival did go ahead, in a scaled-down way, and Bachelot confirmed that the 2021 event will also happen, but with restrictions.

She said: “It will be held on 21st June and will not be subject to the health passport.

“People will be able to dance, but it will be a masked party with an 11pm curfew.”

Under France’s phased reopening plan, larger events will be allowed again from June 9th, but some of them will require a health passport (with either a vaccination certificate or a recent negative test) to enter.

The Fête de la musique, however, is generally focused around lots of smaller neighbourhood concerts.

The curfew is being gradually moved back throughout the summer before – if the health situation permits – being scrapped entirely on June 30th.

Bachelot added: “I appeal to everyone’s responsibility.

“The rate of 50 percent of people vaccinated should have been reached by then, so we will reach an important level of immunity.”

The Fête de la musique is normally France’s biggest street party, with up to 18,000 events taking place across the country on the same day.

It’s hugely popular, despite being (whisper it) the idea of an American – the concept is the brainchild of American Joel Cohen, when he was working as a music producer for French National Radio (France Musique) in the 1970s.

By 1982 the French government put its weight behind the idea and made it an official event and it’s been a fixture in the calendar ever since. 

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