On 13th January, opponents of the government’s same sex marriage and parenting legislation took to the streets in the ‘Demonstration for All’ (echoing their opponents’ slogan ‘Marriage for All’). Charlie Hebdo journalist, Zineb, was there and gave her reaction to these unusual demonstrators.
Article source: “J'ai vu une France blanche”, Zenib, Charlie Hebdo, No 1074, 16 janvier 2013
What could be more chic than the “Demonstration for all”? At least the call to come dressed in blue, white and pink was more or less answered. On Sunday January 13th, hundreds of thousands of felt hats, fur coats and designer handbags marched through Paris to “protect The Family” against the asexual whims of a bunch of gays from le Marais who want to destroy civilization as we know it: the France of family values based on the natural coitus between one man and one woman.
Despite the flood of humanity, there are no leftist brass bands, no sense of unionist bonhomie, no smoking flares, and the vuvuzela seller on the Pont de l’Alma has had to pack his merchandise away and wait for the counter-demonstration on January 27th. He’ll have a better chance of selling his wares to the folk on the rainbow coloured floats, who are a bit keener on a party atmosphere. But today’s protesters are no fans of noise pollution. They want to make themselves heard, yes, but not with a cacophony. What’s more, the organisers have managed to keep out almost all “unauthorised” slogans… the exception being a man at the foot of the Eiffel Tower brandishing a placard containing a few passages from the gospels. Here, a mainstream moral majority wants to put children at the centre of the debate, citing yet another divorce where the children are “taken hostage”. The organisers want to wipe out any trace of homophobia amongst demonstrators who have come from as far afield as Corsica and Marseilles, and even from abroad. Only the Civitas “activists” have preferred to go it alone, as it's out of the question for such Catholic radicals, to “sympathise” with the fiends of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not the 22 Mariannes in Phrygian caps, nor all the national and regional flags will succeed in giving the illusion of a France united against “marriage for all”. For once the government seems determined, its members have already stated that this mobilisation of Old France will not force it to back down. But enough is enough for these demonstrators in their Sunday best, some of whom have still to come to terms with the legalisation of divorce. As one nicely worded slogan puts it: “François, what do you know about marriage anway?”
Translation: Stéphane Devos and Sophie Kowalczuk
Editing: Sam Trainor