hatzel
3rd February 2014, 19:54
Been in Paris with my friend recently, happened to chance across a couple of demos this weekend. The first was some kind of anti-Assad thing, couldn't be bothered to stick around and try to figure out what that was all about but the music was good. The second was la Manif pour tous (the ones who used to be against gay marriage but now seem to want to put forward a broader 'family values' agenda, buzzwords include 'democracy versus gender theory'), which was yesterday.
I was surprised by how many people came out, most seemed to have flags with the MPT logo on them, or branded t-shirts and sweatshirts and all that stuff (no idea how much that would cost). There were also a lot of regional flags, for example I saw the Breton flag, and what I assume was some French monarchist flag (you know, blue background, yellow fleurs-de-lis all over the place), I can't remember any others right now. Ridiculously loud sound system on the back of a truck pumping out Nicki Minaj, general party atmosphere. (Interestingly enough when I said to my friend that it was a 'gay marriage thing,' he assumed I meant it was a pride march.) Young and old, people hanging flags out of their windows. Some boring multiculturalist crap, banners like 'French Muslims say NO to gay marriage!' Their website has all different languages on it (well, French, German, Spanish, Russian and English) and it talks about 'our international network' but I'm not entirely sure if that actually exists. Their Facebook page has little MPT people standing in neighbouring countries, too, so I guess they want some kind of continent-wide movement, which makes sense because I think I remember the French right saying last year it was supposed to be their '68. Collaborating organisations include National SOS Fathers and New European Feminism. Ahhh...yeah, pretty much this is a thing that happened recently, in case you didn't know, maybe you want to talk about it, I dunno...
I was surprised by how many people came out, most seemed to have flags with the MPT logo on them, or branded t-shirts and sweatshirts and all that stuff (no idea how much that would cost). There were also a lot of regional flags, for example I saw the Breton flag, and what I assume was some French monarchist flag (you know, blue background, yellow fleurs-de-lis all over the place), I can't remember any others right now. Ridiculously loud sound system on the back of a truck pumping out Nicki Minaj, general party atmosphere. (Interestingly enough when I said to my friend that it was a 'gay marriage thing,' he assumed I meant it was a pride march.) Young and old, people hanging flags out of their windows. Some boring multiculturalist crap, banners like 'French Muslims say NO to gay marriage!' Their website has all different languages on it (well, French, German, Spanish, Russian and English) and it talks about 'our international network' but I'm not entirely sure if that actually exists. Their Facebook page has little MPT people standing in neighbouring countries, too, so I guess they want some kind of continent-wide movement, which makes sense because I think I remember the French right saying last year it was supposed to be their '68. Collaborating organisations include National SOS Fathers and New European Feminism. Ahhh...yeah, pretty much this is a thing that happened recently, in case you didn't know, maybe you want to talk about it, I dunno...