As the Pride procession set off through the streets of Rouen on Saturday, June 22, 25-year-old Alexane raised her placard to the sky, on which was written: “The RN [Rassemblement National] is like your ex, he says he’s changed, but he hasn’t.” The young woman, with a blue, magenta and lavender bisexual flag on her shoulders, was marching for the second time in the Normandy capital. She noted that Pride was “more politicized than last time.”

This impression was shared by many of those accustomed to marching in the city of a hundred steeples. Suzanne, 27, originally from Rouen, considered this year’s march “more bitter and less festive.” “There are more slogans than in other years, and I’m getting a lot of support for my placard,” she said, brandishing it above her head: “Protect Queer Lives, No to the RN, Everyone to the polls on 06/30 and 07/07.”

As with many Pride marches across France, calls to block the RN coming to power or to vote for the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP, left-wing) came to the fore after the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale on June 9. Rouen’s LGBTQI+ Center, which organized the march, eventually settled on the first option. But it was a call from the Rouen feminist action group to vote for the NFP that drew the most applause during the keynote speeches.

In Rouen, as in La Rochelle and Lille, there were many calls to vote in favor of the NFP, even if some charities are not always inclined to adopt a partisan stance.

“The protest processions were much bigger this year than in previous years,” said Tristan Haute, lecturer in political science at the Université de Lille and a specialist in the electoral behavior of the LGBTQ+ community. “I can’t remember such a politicization of Pride in 2022, when the period coincided just as much with the legislative elections.”

A challenge for the Nouveau Front Populaire

This politicization of youth is welcome for the left, as 18-24 year-olds were the only age group in the European elections to put La France Insoumise (LFI, left-wing) in the lead, quite comfortably ahead of the RN. But while support for left-wing forces is all the more marked in the LGBTQ+ community, “the challenge for the Nouveau Front Populaire is to remobilize this age group, which is subject to very high abstention rates,” said Haute.

Tarik, just 31 and representative of the Parisian collective Les Inverti·e·s, has noticed a “surge” among the young people in his community. “Since June 9, we’ve gone from meetings of 30 people to over 70 each time. It’s almost like a general meeting,” he said. Originally “left-wing but non-partisan,” this time the collective called for a commitment to the NFP in an op-ed that was widely followed by the LGBTQ+ community. Its members also went to Pride Marches and queer places to encourage others to vote. It was a first for many of them.

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