Joe.My.God. LGBT News
La Manif Pour Tous, which staged massive and often violent anti-gay protests in the months before France legalized same-sex marriage, returned to the streets of Paris today. The Associated Press reports:
Tens of thousands of people have marched in Paris to call for the repeal of a law allowing gay marriage, six months before France’s next presidential election. The protesters ended up at Trocadero Plaza, near the Eiffel Tower. Police estimated the crowd at 24,000, while organizers gave a figure of 200,000.
They were also protesting Sunday against the use of assisted reproduction techniques and surrogate mothers to help same-sex couples have babies. Assisted reproduction is allowed in France only for infertile heterosexual couples and surrogacy is banned.
The group organizing the march presents itself as promoting the traditional family model of “one mother and one father.” It hopes to influence the debate before the presidential election next year. None of the major candidates in the election attended the march.
A small group of bare-breasted Femen demonstrators briefly showed up Sunday during the march to protest against what they call “homophobia.” The half-dozen Femen protesters were removed by police.
More from France 24:
One protester attending the march on Sunday, 72-year-old retired engineer Michel Delaune, said: “I am against gay marriage and against the crappy leaders who oppose the power of the people.”
Three years ago, Manif pour Tous mounted a vigorous campaign against same-sex marriage — at one point claiming to have brought 1.4 million on the streets of Paris. But Socialist President Francois Hollande defied the protests and in 2013 France legalised same-sex marriage.
The movement then faded away, but its leader Ludovine de la Rochere said it now had “a bright future” because Hollande’s Socialist government had “destabilised families”.
But none of the leading candidates for the right-wing nomination for next year’s presidential election have said they have any intention of repealing same-sex marriage if they are elected.
In previous protests La Manif Pour Tous was backed by the neo-Nazi National Front, but so far it appears none of them were in attendance today.
Hate is not a family value! #femen vs #ManifPourTous #ManifDeLaHaine
photos by Capucine Henry pic.twitter.com/N3tSo85UBf— inna shevchenko (@femeninna) October 16, 2016