Late last week I decided to write a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. The reason I am going to do this is so I can ask him what he's going to do about homophobia in schools.
The right-wing President has been known to pass some center-left-wing laws in the past. In fact, it is fair to say that as an Irish citizen, it would have been much harder for me to move to France if it wasn't for Sarkozy passing laws that would enable my parents to easily set up a business here.
On Friday I was a first-hand witness to a gay schoolmate being bullied using homophobic slurs. This was the first time I had ever seen anything like this in real life, and it aint pretty. Not only was it hurtful to the guy, but it was a very violent attack for a pathetic reason. It seemed (I missed the start of it) that the bully was insulting him because he was going to go into class. Apparently, a group of his classmates were going to skip their economics class as a form of protest against a test the teacher had set that day. This guy said that he was still going to go in and sit the test no matter what everyone else was doing. This, as it would appear, is a perfect excuse to attack someone on the grounds of their sexual orientation.
It's the first time I had seen something like this in my school and I was shocked. It seems the victim in question wasn't that phased by it. He came out a few years ago and is quite effeminate. He is probably used to situations like these ones, having gone through middle school as openly gay, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable.
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| Nicolas Sarkozy during the 2007 presidential race |
So I thought about it on the bus on the way home. As usual, the middle-schoolers were throwing homophobic insults at each other. It made me even more annoyed with the whole situation. When I got home I logged onto Freedom Requires Wings and read Romilly's post on homohysteria. This was the final push I needed. I decided there and then that I would write a letter to the President of France asking him what he's going to do about homophobia in French schools.
The timing couldn't be any better. The general elections are in May and President Sarkozy has announced his re-election bid. I'll be sending this letter in about 2 weeks time, giving him around a 2 weeks to reply before election day. If it turns out that a new president is elected in May I'll send them a letter too, asking them what they plan to do about homophobia in schools during their first term.
Currently, Marine Le Pen - an far right-wing presidential candidate who says if she's elected France's constitution will be altered to say that the country "recognizes no communities" and she'll go back to the old currency (the Franc) - is at the top of the polls. Bad news for people like me - a gay foreigner.
However, I would also like to include some of your questions, so if you have any questions you would like to ask the French President about LGBT-issues, simply leave a comment below or tweet me using the #PresLetter hashtag and I'll let you know if I add them to the letter.
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