Paris Gay Pride parade attracts thousands

Tens of thousands or people joined Paris’s Gay Pride parade on Saturday, rallied behind a banner which demanded “Liberté, égalité, everywhere and always!”.

AFP

Participants told RFI that they still face discrimination in everyday life.

“In bars, in the street, on public transport, I regularly hear homophobic insults and nobody reacts against them,” Frédéric Navarro, who has been HIV-positive for 20 years, said.

One case that hit the headlines this year was the cancellation of a summer school jointly organised by the Paris-based group Gais Musette, which organises ballroom and Latin dancing for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, and a group in the picturesque Ardèche region in the south of the country.

The event was called off at the last moment.

“They sent us an email saying that homosexuality did not correspond to the energies and ethics that they were developing for themselves, their children and the people around them,” Gais Musette member Jean-François Boeuf said.

Although attitudes are changing, gay rights groups say they have been receiving increasing numbers of calls for help.

“Some people are attacked physically but also morally, people are victims of harassment, among other things,” Christine Pujol of the SOS Homophobie group.