Published time: May 26, 2013 16:53
The French capital saw another day of anti-LGBT protests as thousands flocked to central Paris to protest legislation signed on May 18 by President Francoise Holland allowing same-sex marriages. Prior to the rally, police arrested over 50 protesters.
Nearly 5,000 police took up positions across Paris on Sunday, as
up to 200,000 people are expected to demonstrate in city’s center
in four different simultaneous protest marches.
Three rallies are headed by the anti-same-sex-marriage movement,
while the fourth is led by the traditionalist Catholic lobby group,
Civitas. By late afternoon, the protesters were beginning to fill
the Invalides esplanade just across the Seine River from the Champs
Elysees.
The protesters are heading from the three points around the city,
and the march has reportedly been largely peaceful. Prior to
Sunday’s protest, 50 demonstrators were arrested Saturday evening
after chaining themselves to metal barriers in the middle of the
Champs Elysées and firing smoke canisters. Police also seized a van
carrying masks, banners and smoke bombs.
Among those expected to participate in the demonstration are
members of a radical new movement called French Spring, which
French Interior Ministry may ban over its “call for
violence.”
This comes after the group released a statement threatening to
target “the government and all its appendices, the collaborating
political parties and lobbies where the ideological programmers are
developed and the organs which spread it.”
This is the first such rally in Paris since France officially
became the 14th country in the world and the ninth in EU to
legalize same-sex marriage after President Francois Hollande signed
a law on May 18. The rally was planned long before the government
voted on the law earlier than expected.
It also comes just three days before the first same-sex marriage
is held in Montpellier in southern France on May 29, Reuters
reported.
France has seen months of street protests, bitter political
debates, clashes between police and demonstrators, and even a rise
in homophobic attacks, prompting President Hollande’s government to
call for an end to the violence and issue threats of severe
punishment for such crimes.
The situation escalated Tuesday when far-right writer Dominique
Venner, who is linked to a far-right French nationalist party,
shot and killed himself inside Paris’ Notre Dame
Cathedral. He had called for “spectacular” action to protect
France’s identity, and was denouncing same-sex marriage law.
This article originally appeared on: RT