Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

EQUALITY

France to create LGBTQ ambassador to promote rights around the world

The French government will create an ambassador's post to promote LGBTQ rights across the world, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Thursday.

Published: 4 August 2022 16:51 CEST

France to create LGBTQ ambassador to promote rights around the world

Prime minister Elisabeth Borne announced the post, as well as funding for the creation of (Photo by REMY GABALDA / AFP)

The new envoy will coordinate the foreign ministry’s policy and act as “France’s voice” for the promotion of LGBTQ rights, Borne told an audience on the 40th anniversary of France’s abolition of a World War II-era law discriminating against homosexuals.

The ambassador, to be appointed by the end of the year, will “campaign for the decriminalisation everywhere of homosexuality and trans-identity”, she said during a visit to a LGBTQ centre in Orléans, central France.

Borne also announced a €3 million fund to add 10 new LGBTQ centres to the 35 already operating in France, which have been set up to help lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, as well as those with other sexual identities, “who don’t know who to turn to”.

Borne said discrimination “continues to exclude, injure and sometimes even kill” LGBTQ people.

She added: “The battle for the minds is not yet won.”

Borne insisted that there was “no ambivalence” among the members of President Emmanuel Macron’s government on their commitment to LGBTQ rights.

But she acknowledged there had been “hurtful comments” towards LGBTQ people, a reference to Regional Affairs Minister Caroline Cayeux, who joined the government in a reshuffle last month and who has been accused of homophobia over comments against same-sex marriage and adoption.

Speaking in the Senate in 2013, Cayeux said plans to legalise gay marriage at the time went “against nature”.

She then sparked outrage last month when, in an apparent attempt to defend herself, she said: “I have to say that I have a lot of friends among those people.”

The 73-year-old later apologised on Twitter, saying her remarks had been “inappropriate”.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Women athletes finally reach competitive parity at Paris Olympics

Once seen as a ‘celebration of manly virtue’ without women athletes, the modern Olympics will reach gender parity for the first time during this year’s Games in Paris, 128 years since its first edition.

When the ancient Greek event was revived by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin in the late 19th century, he saw it as a celebration of gentlemanly athleticism, “with female applause as its reward”.

In 1924, the last time the Olympics were held in Paris, four percent of competitors were female and they were restricted to sports considered ‘suitable’, such as swimming, tennis and croquet.

“For the first time in Olympic history we are going to have gender parity on the field,” Marie Sallois, IOC director in charge of gender equality, told journalists about the Paris 2024 Games on International Women’s Day in March.

The milestone is the result of incremental jumps in female participation at each Games, mirroring broader societal trends in most parts of the world that have gradually opened up traditionally male-only domains.

READ ALSO Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes’ beds are ‘anti-sex’

“It took a very long time for us to finally get to 44 percent (of women) in London in 2012, the first edition at which women could take part in all the sports, then 48 percent in Tokyo (in 2021),” Sallois added.

The barriers for women were once so high that they competed in a rival Women’s Olympics in the 1920s, before the event was absorbed by today’s International Olympic Committee (IOC).

At the 1928 Games, in Amsterdam, women competed in athletics for the first time, but the sight of exhausted female runners after the 800m final appalled male onlookers so much that they were excluded again.

Until 1968, women were barred from competing in any race longer than 200 metres, and even in 1976 women’s events made up only a quarter of the Olympic programme.

Long considered unable to cope with the physical demands of the marathon, they were allowed to take part for the first time at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.

“We’ve come a long way over a relatively short space of time,” head of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, said recently in Paris.

The Paris 2024 Olympics will not only feature as many women athletes as men, it will also give greater prominence to women’s events.

Instead of the men’s marathon being the athletics event leading up to the closing ceremony, it will be the women’s event instead.

“We’ve made a lot of effort to organise the women’s events to ensure they get visibility, meaning over the weekend when there are more viewers, or during prime-time,” Sallois added.

READ ALSO Factcheck: Is France really trying to ban speaking English at the Paris Olympics?

For the opening ceremony, the IOC has also suggested each national delegation nominate two flag carriers, a man and a woman.

Sallois conceded elite sport still had a lot of work to do to achieve genuine gender parity.

Among coaching staff at the last Olympics in Tokyo, just 13 percent of coaches were women.

Sports administration remains overwhelmingly male, including in national Olympic delegations and in the federations that run sports.

The IOC has never had a female leader and its membership – made up of 106 delegates who vote on key decisions – remains 59 percent male.

But the organisation has ensured gender parity on its internal commissions and the number of women members has increased significantly in recent years.

“The IOC needs to be a role model and set an example,” Sallois added.

Url copied to clipboard!