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Rainbow flags near Stonewall's bar, June 26, 2019, to commemorate 50 years of riots of the same name. AFP / Spencer Platt

This weekend is the Pride March or Gay Pride. Parades will be held around the world to defend the rights of LGBT + in a festive way. The one in New York will certainly be one of the most spectacular, especially as the city hosts this year the World Pride, an event that lasted throughout the month of June. Just 50 years ago, the "Stonewall riots" took place in New York City. Hundreds of people, both homosexuals and local residents, clashed with the police for several nights. They thus launched the great public struggle for the rights of LGBT +, including "via" the creation of Gay Pride.

With our correspondent in New York, Grégoire Pourtier

The life of homosexuals in the United States was difficult in the 1960s.
An invisible minority, hidden, harassed by the authorities, their cause was largely ignored, while African-Americans or the anti-war of Vietnam agitated the American society.

But in 1969, an explosion of violence after an umpteenth police raid in a New York bar, the Stonewall Inn, will cause an awakening.
David Leong, 24 years old at the time, had come to spend the evening in the very liberal West Village.

" The Village was a place where it was a little easier to meet people. That's why I was there , he recalls. It was a surprise to me. First to be there that night. And then it happens like that, in the West Village and how it went. Me, I thought rather that we would advance our rights through negotiations with the mayor .

Founding Event

Many evoke the heat of that night, the zeal of the police in the middle of the electoral campaign, the first shots that electrify the crowded crowd. This spontaneous uprising was unexpected, but the result is there: fifty years later, Stonewall is considered a founding event.

The bar and the small square just in front of it were thus declared a national monument three years ago. And this month, they are the epicenter of World Pride , which has further colored the rainbow-colored neighborhood.

►To read: France: the main stages of the evolution of the rights of homosexuals