Bullfighter gored to death after tripping on cape

A Spanish bullfighter has died after he tripped on his cape in the ring and was gored by the bull in south-west France.

Ivan Fandino, 36, was rushed to hospital but later died from his lung injuries, Spanish news agency EFE reported, citing sources close the Basque matador’s entourage.

Fandino, who was taking part in the Alre-sur-l’Adour bullfighting festival near Pau, had tripped on a cape used in a turn to engage and distract the specially bred fighting bull. The bull then pierced the matador’s torso with its horns. Photographs showed he was conscious, but bleeding heavily, as he was led away from the ring.

France's Sud-Ouest newspaper said the last matador fatality in France was in 1921, when Isidoro Mari Fernando died in the arena in Béziers. He is the second Spanish bullfighter to die in the ring in the past year, after Victor Barrio was gored in front of spectators last July, the first time since the early 1990s a professional matador had died in the ring in Spain.

Fandino had been injured at least twice in previous events - once in 2015, when thrown into the air by a bull in Pamplona, Spain, but more seriously the year before when he was knocked unconscious in Bayonne, France.

Bullfighting was declared legal in France in 2012 after the Constitutional Council rejected a plea from animal rights campaigners to ban the practice. Over 1,000 bulls are killed annually in French bullfights, the AFP news agency reported at the time.

Although bullfighting originated in neighbouring Spain, it took root in France a century and a half ago. Fights - known as corridas in Spain - are especially popular in the Nimes and Arles areas.