2023-06-24 20:09:22
Paris hosted an LGBT+ pride march on Saturday under a slogan deploring “violence for all”, while six young minors were arrested shortly before for attacking a person joining the demonstration.
A dense crowd began to gather on the Place de la Nation from midday, to the sound of drums and between the many stands of rainbow flags which are the rallying sign of the event.
“For ten years, marriage for all, since always, violence for all”
This Parisian “pride” took shape behind the only truck present, carrying the banner “For ten years, marriage for all, always, violence for all”.
Elisa Koubi, co-president of Inter-LGBT, which organized the parade, had previously explained to AFP that “marriage for all ended inequality but did not make all LGBT + in France equal and serene.
At midday, six young men were arrested in Paris for attacking a woman who, with a rainbow flag in her hand, was joining the LGBT+ pride march, we learned from police sources. They pushed her around and made homophobic remarks.
All are minors and one of them is known to belong to the ultra-right movement, the same source added.
“For the right to be yourself”
While several LGBT+ centers have also recently been the target of damage or attacks, the government must soon present a plan to better combat anti-LGBT+ violence.
In the audience, which included many young people, Julie, 17, justified her first participation by “the need to support the cause (…) for the right to be yourself”.
Also presenting herself as “omnisexual with a male preference”, her friend Flavia, 17, explained that she had been “subjected to harassment in college” by students because of an alleged homosexual orientation.
No tanks
The parade rocked out in the early afternoon, to a concert of drumming and a dizzying variety of outfits, ranging from the simple swim trunks of a member of the LGBT-friendly rugby club The Festive Roosters to carnival costumes of the Afro-Caribbean community.
Designed in a logic of “eco-responsibility”, the event included a small electric train, and above all a noria of cargo bikes and other tuk-tuks to carry banners and loudspeakers for music.
The only concession to the world before, the large sound stage for a large concert at the arrival of the Place de la République route, which was already attracting people in the middle of the afternoon, even before the arrival of the parade.
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