The Dictionary of Homophobia (63 page)

The most recent major flare-up of homophobia in France had at stake the PaCS act, the acknowledgment of gay couples, between fall 1998 and summer 1999. The parliamentary left was nevertheless extremely prudent in this case, even timid: it refused to associate the debate on PaCS to a debate on gay parenting (PaCS does not concern filiations); and it did not make PaCS an equivalent to marriage (it accepts the dictate of the right that prohibited the PaCS from being signed at City Hall).

Without surprise, the Catholic Church plays a major role in the crusade against the legal acknowledgement of gay couples. This acknowledgment was, in fact, for the Holy See a symbolic catastrophe, as it marginalized even more the Catholic discourse on family and sexuality, more and more disconnected from law and fact. In the Pope’s eyes, the Christian
symbolic order
is based on the refusal of homosexuality, and the consideration of it by objective law, even by lay people, cannot but result in a non-Christian order, a return to Paganism and barbarity. In order not to appear to question secularism, France’s Church took care to avoid the use of Biblical laws and carefully window-dressed its catechism with
anthropology
and
psychoanalysis
: its major expert on the matter, Father Tony Anatrella, appeared in the media with alleged scientific considerations (stating that homosexuality is a primitive sexuality; the will to acknowledge gay couples makes us slide toward jeopardizing or putting in
peril
the symbolic and anthropological order, and toward individual and social unreason; gay militants are this way portrayed as the gravediggers of civilization). But the main voice of the Catholic lobby in the battle with the Union pour la démocratie Française (UDF; Union for French Democracy) was Member of Parliament for Yvelines, Christine
Boutin
, consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family: completely sold on the Vatican rhetoric, she saw in homosexuality “the tragedy of refusal of
otherness
” (note the sophism that demands that the other is inevitably of the other sex) and for this reason, refused to accept that one can talk of gay “couple.” She was supported in her efforts by various Catholic networks: Avenir de la culture (an association linked to a far-right Brazilian sect, practicing intimidation of public officials and companies determined to be gay-friendly), Catholic Family Associations, Cercle de la cité vivante (whose bible is
La Marée noire de la pornographie
[The black tide of pornography]), and the Alliance pour les droits de la vie (Alliance for the Right to Life). The originality of this Catholic mobilization was that it tried to solicit the support of the other main religions represented in France—Protestant family associations, Jewish and Muslim authorities—collecting all monotheists in a kind of homophobic ecumenism.

It was, however, the homophobia of the political class that was most visible in 1998–99. The Gaullist right, Christians, and Liberals each felt they had gone to the end of their capacity for tolerance in accepting decriminalization. They did not want to hear about legal recognition (homosexuality was to remain in the private domain, ideally discreet, invisible), let alone gay parenting. Because French conservatives did not really accept the family revolution of the 1980s and 90s (fewer marriages, more divorces, more “blended” families, more single-parent families), inasmuch as this silent revolution destroys the myth of the natural, simple, and universal family, specifically the pro-family credo in place since Vichy and the Liberation. For the right wing, the law had to fight against the fact, to bring forward a “norm,” to maintain a “symbolic civilizing Order,” to save “Nature” (note the “fondness for capitals,” nicely pointed out by Sabine Prokhoris); it is particularly suitable to recall the symbolic inequality of sexualities by affirming that only heterosexuality is worthy of being public, published, taught, and celebrated. The right wing then cried conspiracy: as early as 1993, Ernest Chénière, RPR member of parliament for Oise, denounced “a minority of remarkably organized gay and addicted dropouts,” who “launched a powerful campaign to ensure the passage in law, under pressure, of the objective legalization of their perversions and of their deviances.” Regularly, the right wing alleged to be the mouthpiece of “good Republican sense”: Michel Pinton, UDF mayor of Felletin, called upon the mayors of rural towns and in spring 1998, circulated a petition among them against “the establishment of a union contract for same-sex persons and the implication of the mayors as State officials in celebrating such a contract,” gathering 12,000 signatures, which was well publicized (one-third of France’s mayors signed, but it should be stressed that their constituents only constituted 10% of the French population). Conservative members of society felt legitimized by this call to resistance that came from the depths of the country, which probably explained the surge of conjectural homophobic writings, proven by the letters to the editor of
Figaro
or extremely aggressive, sometimes hateful letters addressed to the very courageous Roselyne Bachelot, the main personality of the parliamentary right to defend the PaCS.

The majority of conservative politicians purported, for their part, that they were defending civilization and the future: at the parliamentary debate, young UDF Member of Parliament Renaud Dutreil, claimed to have anthropological knowledge acquired at the Ecole Normale Supérieure that permitted him to assert that the PaCS was “a sort of transgenic corn in the matter of human relations.” In response, Philippe de Villiers, leader of the Movement for France, exclaimed: “Your innovation of the PaCS is quite simply a return to barbarism; you are walking in the steps of those who in order to undermine society started by undermining family; one day victims will rise and turn to you to tell you a terrible expression: ‘You are the destructive socialism.’” The far right was quite clearly supported in this combat by President Chirac, at least as long as public opinion had not pronounced itself in favor of the project, since Chirac’s francocentric populism included homophobia. As mayor of Paris, he was behind the negative
jurisprudence
of the Council of State, and as president on June 6, 1998, he declared that “one must not risk altering the nature of
marriage
nor trivialize it by putting it at the same level of other human realities of our times, that lead very far from fundamental family values.”

But the proponents of homophobia did not find the popular support they counted on. Several anti-PaCS demonstrations followed one another, whose organizers secretly hoped that they would be comparable to the giant gatherings of 1984 in favor of Catholic teaching. The November 7, 1998 demonstration was attended by 40,000 to 50,000 people brandishing new slogans like “2 Daddies, 2 Mommies; Welcome to the Mess.” The largest one was on January 31, 1999, attended by 98,000 people: several of its slogans sunk to new lows—“Today’s Gays are Tomorrow’s Pedophiles” and “Fags to the Pyre,”—the moderate right wing giving the impression of having been hijacked by the far right. The results of all this agitation were negative for the parliamentary right, whose efforts were defeated (PaCS was enacted on November 15, 1999). This did not prevent, one year later, the RPR Renaud Muselier from starting a petition for stopping gay couples from adopting, arguing that gay parenting would expose children to danger (this petition was signed by 168 members of parliament).

Debates on PaCS also underlined the high level of resistance among the left-wing intelligentsia with regard to gay parenting, including Guy Coq, sociologist Irène Théry, the magazine
Esprit
, or feminist writer and teacher Sylviane Agacinski. Some members of the left believed that they were authorized with the mission of saving the “symbolic order” and “Nature” from the increasingly unreasonable demands of “extremists.” If Coq made himself ridiculous with his anger and intolerance, Théry, the leading expert on the blended family and official representative in Martine Aubry’s cabinet, lost some of her intellectual credibility in view of Eric Fassin’s flawless rationality. The reserved
Esprit
, which had nevertheless known a period of openness at the beginning of the 1990s, now manifested the inevitable decline of the Catholic intelligentsia. Doubtless thinking to legitimize her husband’s prudishness (Lionel Jospin, who was then prime minister), Agacinski, in her
Politique des sexes
(1998), thought she could affirm the natural heterosexuality of humanity and relegate homosexuality to the romanticism of transgression unworthy of equality. Certain left-wing essayists, among them Frédéric Martel, also denounced, the
communitarianism
of French homosexuals derived from an American model that would be dangerous to French republican political values. In the university milieu, a similar argument was used to impede the introduction of gay and lesbian studies, whose intellectual legitimacy is disputed by people who ignore almost all Anglo-Saxon or French research on the subject.

It would be tempting to conclude by stressing the decline of homophobia in society. Certainly, homosexuality in France still provokes insults, aggression, dismissals, and intimidation of all sorts, identified in reports issued by
SOS homophobie
in 1994, and it is interesting to note that certain successful published works are still clearly homo- or lesbophobic. It becomes apparent that homophobia does not have the same weight everywhere: the South of France (macho France, France with “honor” societies) remains generally more hostile to gays than in the North; elites (political and economical), country people, and suburbanites (the middle and working classes), are more homophobic than the urban middle class or the intelligentsia (even if, as we saw, this group is less gay friendly than we often think); people sixty years of age or older have more prejudices than those under thirty; and “practicing believers” (whatever their religion) are infinitely more homophobic than those who are not.

Nevertheless, opinions are changing and surveys are proving it: from 1985–87, homosexuality was “a way among others to live one’s sexuality” for a majority of French. Besides, the same surveys showed a generational disagreement that was extremely promising for the future: in 1993, for 76% of teenagers interviewed, homosexuality was not objectionable; and at the end of the 90s, a large majority of people under the age of thirty were not only favorable to PaCS but also to gay marriage. This diminution of homophobia has several origins. The essential explanation is due to the unprecedented decline of the moral and cultural influence of France’s Catholic Church. A great majority of French think that an adult’s sexuality should not be controlled by any other authority than the individual conscience, and what is condemned by the Church is not necessarily condemned by the general public. To this, AIDS has tragically sanctified a social category that before was often jeered or scorned: the gay person is not automatically ridiculed anymore. Certain media have accentuated the phenomenon by reporting truthfully and responsibly on gay issues (one can underline the highly pedagogical action of Jean-Luc Delarue’s television program
Ça se discute
, and the significant evolution of
Le Monde
newspaper).

Communalization equally played a role in improving the visibility and image of homosexuals: participation in Paris Lesbian and Gay Pride has become massive since the 1990s (Gay Pride 1988: 1,000 participants; 1992: 10,000; 1995: 60,000; 2001: 250,000); and since 1997–98, there has been an increase in the number of gay and lesbian associations in post-secondary institutions, universities, and companies.

All this paradoxically paved the way for the
criminalization
of homophobia; the slogan of Lesbian and Gay Pride 2000 significantly played on the infamous Mirguet amendment: in future, it is not homosexuality anymore, but it is homophobia that is a “social scourge.”

In 2004, the National Assembly approved legislation that made homophobic and sexist comments illegal. As of 2001, 55% of French people considered homosexuality “an acceptable lifestyle,” and a 2006 survey showed that 62% supported same-sex marriage and 44% believed same-sex couples should have the right to adopt. However, although a parliamentary report on family and the rights of children in 2006 recommended increasing some rights given in PaCS, it recommended increasing prohibitions against same-sex marriage, adoption, and access to medically-assisted reproduction. Such legislation, and events like the attempted murder of the gay mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanöe, show that even in France, intolerance is always a threat for homosexuals.

However, in 2005, on May 17 (fifteen years to the day after the World Health Organization decided to remove homosexuality from their list of mental disorders), the French intellectual Louis-Georges Tin launched the first International Day Against Homophobia, known in fifty countries worldwide as IDAHO. More than 100 events were organized on this occasion, including public demonstrations, debates, exhibitions, film screenings, and street campaigns. The initiative was widely supported by left-wing parties, but in 2008, in order to show that homophobia was also a concern for the right-wing parties, the conservative government (which nonetheless included the anti-PaCS Christine Boutin) decided to give the day official recognition. Moreover, at the urging of the IDAHO committee, French Secretary of State Rama Yade decided to bring forth a declaration to the UN General Assembly for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.
—Pierre Albertini
[Original essay updated by Arsenal Pulp Press.]

Agacinski, Sylviane.
Politique des sexes
. Paris: Le Seuil, 1998. [Published in the US as
Parity of the Sexes
. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001.]

Ahlstedt, Eva.
André Gide et le débat sur l’homosexualité
;
de L’Immoraliste (1902) à Si le grain ne meurt (1926)
. Gothenburg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1994.

Anatrella, Tony.
La Différence interdite
. Paris: Flammarion. 1998.

Bachelot, Roselyne.
Le Pacs, entre haine et amour
. Paris: Pion, 2000.