On International Day Against Homophobia and as he is expected to disclose a report on the rise of the number of victims of anti-LGBT crimes and offences, this Monday May 18th at noon, the Secretary of the Interior sounds the alarm. In 2019, 1,870 infractions with homophobic or transphobic motivation have been reported in France, that is to say 36% more than in 2018. Among them, 33% were insults and affronts, while abuse – physical or sexual – are 28% of the complaints. Victims are mainly men (75%).
The minister says: “big cities do not appear as shelters, unlike what one can think, since 36% of the complaints have been recorded there”. By the way, about thirty complaints have been filed after insults or threats made online. These facts are worrisome, so much that the government has just passed the AVIA bill that forces platforms and search engines to remove within twenty-four hours any “clearly” illicit contents, under threat of fines.
Facing the rise of abuse throughout lockdown, Marlène Schiappa has “released €300,000 in order to finance 6,000 hotel nights during lockdown, set up this Monday and directly taken care of by the State to enable young facing homophobic abuse to be protected” and also recalls the State has given €50,000 for an application created by the Flag! association enabling to report LGBT-phobic abuse, as well as domestic abuse within LGBT couples directly to the police.
