Some 26,000 opponents of the opening of the PMA to all women marched on Sunday, January 19, in Paris, according to a count by the cabinet Occurrence. This is almost three times less than during the previous rally on October 6, which had brought together 74,500 people in the streets of the capital before the text was voted by the National Assembly, according to the counting of this independent cabinet.
The Paris police prefecture has announced that it has counted 41,000 demonstrators, almost as many as on October 6 when it calculated the participation of 42,000 people.
The red and green crowd started their march early Sunday afternoon from the Alma bridge, at the call of the collective "Marchons Enfants!" which brings together 22 associations - including the Manif pour tous. "Liberty, equality, fatherhood", "Where is dad? On the frozen shelf", "Mother 1, mother 2, where is the parity?", We could read on several posters.
This mainly family audience, coming from all over France, joined the Place de l'Opéra in the afternoon under a winter sun.
"We are there to demand the withdrawal of this antiethical bill (...) which will allow us to rewrite it on the basis of fraternity, solidarity, respect for human beings", declared the president of Manif for all, Ludovine de la Rochère, before the start of the event. "The PMA without father would make fatherless orphans", she warned, condemning "the creation of a filiation of intention which corresponds to nothing".
The collective "Marchons Enfants!" does not rule out other events
The senators, who examine the bioethics bill from Tuesday, have already adopted the text in special committee on January 8, including article 1 on PMA, despite the hostility of a part of the right, majority in the Luxembourg Palace.
"We have put a lot of emphasis on PMA, but it has hidden all the excesses" contained in the reform, said Pascale Morinière, president of Catholic Family Associations (AFC). Citing transgenic or chimeric embryos and research on the embryo authorized for up to 21 days, she called for declaring "a state of bioethical emergency", saying that "a red line [was] crossed".
"All that is proposed will bring about a commercialization of the living," warned Patrice Obert, president of the Pink Pisces, a political group of leftist Christians.
In the ranks of the demonstrators, many already demonstrated against marriage for all in 2013.
The collective "Marchons Enfants!" does not rule out other events "in the coming weeks", in the event of the status quo of the text and "non-opening of a dialogue".
What seems excluded, as recalled on France Inter the Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, just before the demonstration: "The government's program is clear and will not deviate".
With AFP
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