En 2011 Je Marche. En 2012 Je Vote
Gay rights have a long way to go. This weeks gay pride march in Paris provided much vocal support for gay people to wed. With a presidential election imminent, Ben Austwick assesses the state of gay politics in France.
5 Jul 2011, 14:02
Paris Pride
In my teenage years, I went to a few pride events in Leeds. More often than not the main reason for mine, and everybody else’s attendance, was an entire day of drinking, socialising and engaging in promiscuous activity. No political aim, just some friendly, camp, fun.
However, the French do things differently.
Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of sequins, leather straps, men who looked like women, women who looked like men and shifty-eyed, high-trousered individuals rocking the geography teacher look – but it was the issue being fought for that made the difference. The Huffington Post referred to the gay rights movement in France as ‘very vocal’ and I’d like to add that they are ‘politically very vocal’. Gay pride events in the UK tend to lack direction or try to make a few half-arsed political points such as ‘end the blood donor ban for gay men’; ‘guffaw, I’ve never kissed a Tory’ and ‘bisexuals do actually exist’, whereas in France they were behind one specific cause this year - gay marriage.
From a country that prides itself on revolution, gay rights campaigners in France are furious that they have a government who won’t pass a bill allowing same-sex couples to wed, even though polls continuously show increasing public support for the reforms.
But it’s not just a gay ‘revolution’ – as we marched to the Bastille I was particularly surprised by the number of straight couples joining the cause – joining in with at least as much passion as the rest of us. Looking around, I estimated that around half of the people taking part were straight. As the procession meandered through the streets of Paris people were hanging from windows, waving from balconies and even on one occasion providing a fire-breathing show for us all on top of a bus stop. This wasn’t an event for drag queens to scare young children or for scantily clad go-go dancers to stockpile poppers, it was for people of all sexualities to come together and show support for full equality under French law.
Will this really affect Sarkozy in next year’s presidential election? Probably not. – The chance of a law allowing same sex marriage in France was all but extinguished when Sarkozy won in 2007 – throughout his campaign he had pandered to the traditionalists in his party by saying he was strongly against such reforms and on occasions where he stated he was in favour of granting further gay rights, it was more often than not an empty gesture. Not only is Sarkozy unlikely to win any of the pink vote next year but neither is his UMP party after voting against allowing same-sex marriages in June this year. It’s unlikely to make a huge dent in the result though as it’s pretty hard to lose votes you were never going to get.
Despite all of this, polls are currently showing that the Socialist Party candidate (whoever that will be), is the slight favourite to beat Sarkozy next year and the National Assembly elections are unlikely to result in a majority for the UMP. If the gay rights movement in France continues with the force and ferocity shown during Marche des Fiertés and they’re not faced with a government or President standing in their way then surely it’s only a matter of time until they get what they’ve been requesting for so long?
The author
Ben Austwick
Ben Austwick is an English language teacher and travel blogger living in Zaragoza, Spain.
Full profile →
Comments (0)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed