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Homophobic incidents precede Paris gay pride parade

A self-confessed "far-right anti-LGBT activist" was arrested for ripping a rainbow flag at the French parliament on the eve of Saturday's LGBTI parade in Paris. Earlier in the week vandals defaced rainbows painted on the street amid a right-wing backlash against official support for gay rights.

The Gay Pride parade in Paris, 30 June 2018
The Gay Pride parade in Paris, 30 June 2018 AFP
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For the first time ever two rainbow flags were placed at the doors of the National Assembly this week as a "symbol of the fight against homophobia and or equal rights", as the parliament's speaker François de Rugy put it when explaining the decision Thursday.

A man, who described himself as a far-right anti-LGBT activist was arrested on Friday night for attacking one of them, officials announced.

Right-wingers and hardline Catholics demonstrated in the thousands as the parliament debated the Socialist government's gay marriage bill but failed to prevent it being passed.

Homophobic graffiti on a Paris zebra crossing

The rancour lives on, however, and during the week graffiti was sprayed on rainbows painted beside zebra crossings in the Marais, a centre of gay nightlife in Paris.

The city council responded by painting two more crossings and announcing that the decoration would become permanent, a "resolutely positive and benevolent signal" according to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.

Techno at the Elysée

Earlier this month right-wing politicians and social media users were horrified President Emmanuel Macron's invitation to techno artistes to perform at the presidential palace during the annual music festival.

During the event LGBTQ dancers performed on the steps and posed for a photo with Macron and his wife Brigitte.

Christophe Castaner hits back at critics

One performer, DJ Kiddy Smile, wore a T-shirt declaring "Immigrant's son, black and queer" in protest at the government's immigration bill.

Several right-wing politicians tweeted indignantly in response.

"Help!" was National Rally (formerly National Front) leader Marine Le Pen's succinct reaction to video of the dancers, while mainstream-right Republicans MP Julien Aubert stormed that "the presidency of the republic is not a nightclub and even less a strip joint".

The photo was "an insult to France's heart", stormed former conservative presidential candidate Philippe de Villiers.

Christophe Castaner, who heads Macron's Republic on the Move party, hit back with a call to distribute the photo as widely as possible, "since it upsets a part of the political class that normalises racist and homophobe statements".

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