Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe (C) marches in the Gay Pride in Paris
Always colourful and raucous, the annual Gay Pride parade in Paris on Saturday was further buoyed by the promise of France’s new Socialist government to legalise gay marriage and adoption rights.
“This is a special parade because it is the first time we have a government, a president, a parliament who are in favour of progress,” said Nicolas Gougain, spokesman for the the gay rights group Inter-LGBT.
Organisers were expecting record levels of attendance from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual) community at the parade heading from Montparnasse to the iconic Place de la Bastille.
Symbolically, French Minister for Families Dominique Bertinotti turned out to see the floats set off.
“I go everywhere where the future of the family is at stake,” she said, adding that “every bit of social progress benefits society as a whole”.
Bertinotti said she was “confident” the law “would be passed in 2013”.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said ahead of the march on Friday that “the right to marriage and adoption for all would be put in place” during President Francois Hollande’s five-year mandate, but did not specify the date.
-full report at AFP
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