"Before we felt guilty, today we show ourselves": meeting in Paris against LGBTphobies

Hundreds of people gathered in Paris on Sunday, October 21, after a series of homophobic attacks in the capital in recent weeks. Reportage.

"We can not yet love freely in France today," laments Pierre, a 40-year-old Parisian. He and hundreds of other people marched in Paris this Sunday after a series of homophobic attacks in the capital in recent weeks. They were 3,000 according to a police source. "Stop LGBTphobies" , for the right to "love freely" could read on their placards.

Several political figures, including the new Minister of Culture Franck Riester, the government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux and the Secretary of State Mounir Mahjoubi, also mingled with the crowd dotted with flags in the colors of the rainbow. sky.

The victims of #lgbtphobies raise their fists in Paris during the rally pic.twitter.com/VA48SiIXGc

"It's pretty incredible that in 2018 there are still such problems and we must come to the Republic Square to claim rights," said Benedict, 39, came to testify his "solidarity with the victims" and "Put a pressure on the authorities" .

Like these two boys, Olivia and Philippine, 25 and 26 years old, report having been subjected to "verbal aggression, insults" . There are "parents who pull their child across the street" or someone who shoots them, "who makes the man at home?" " As a result, "we restrict ourselves in our public statements, we only do so in safe, closed places," they say.

"Liberation" of speech

The event was organized at the call of several associations, in response to recent attacks. One of the latest was held on Tuesday. Guillaume Mélanie, president of Urgences Homophobie, an association for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) foreigners, was beaten on the way out of a restaurant. Present at the event, his eyes still marked by a cock, he welcomed a "liberation" of speech. After his assault, he posted a picture of his tumefied face on Twitter. "Before we felt guilty, today we show ourselves ," he says.

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Joël Deumier, president of SOS Homophobie, has urgently called for a "national campaign" to raise awareness against LGBTphobia. And that all LGBTphobe words, whether they come from "the Pope, the Manif for all or Marcel Campion" , are "systematically" condemned by the government. "There is a homophobic physical aggression every three days in France," he said.

In Paris, acts of a homophobic nature between January and September are however down 37% compared to 2017 over the same period (74 reported facts against 118), according to the figures of the Prefecture of Police. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo on Wednesday called for a "collective surge" and invited the services of the Prefecture of Police, the Paris prosecutor, the interministerial delegation to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred (Dilcrah) as well as the associations at a meeting on the subject.