“Fuck LGBT” and adorned with a Celtic cross. An anti-LGBT banner was taken down from a crane by firefighters in Rennes this Saturday morning, a few hours before the launch of the Pride March. Several photos of the banner have circulated on social networks. Ille-et-Vilaine firefighters confirmed the intervention of five firefighters to remove a banner hung on a crane on Boulevard Georges-Pompidou, around 10 a.m. in Rennes. However, they did not confirm the homophobic inscriptions on the banner.
In a press release, the PS mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré castigated a “homophobic and transphobic message”, deployed by “a small identity group”. The Pride March parade is scheduled from 2 p.m. in the streets of downtown Rennes.
“For several months now, intolerant, racist and identity speech has been freed, especially in Brittany, which until then was rather protected from the actions of far-right parties and groups. This movement, which is more broadly part of the rise of authoritarian political parties in Europe, must be fought,” she said. “Whether it is attacks against the LGBTI + community, against migrants, against the elected representatives of the Republic, the far right will always find democrats to get in their way. This ideology is not a simple intolerant opinion, it is a crime”, insisted the elected socialist, denouncing the “Deadly impasses” of the far right.