Iván Fandiño preferred to let his cape do the talking. The handsome Basque bullfighter was what the Spanish call “una persona muy seria” — a solemn, grave, laconic man. He rarely opened his mouth unless something needed saying, even down to his last words. As he was being carried from the little bullring at Aire-sur-l’Adour in southern France, he told his assistants, “Hurry up, because I’m dying.” The bull’s horn had plunged deep into his right side, damaging his liver, kidney and lung. His heart stopped at Mont-de-Marsan hospital before his wife and baby daughter could reach him.

His death, following that of the Segovian matador Victor Barrio less than a year ago, has revived the abolition debate. Before Barrio, there had been an unprecedented run of 31 years without a matador dying in the ring.