PARIS, July 16 (Reuters) – A column signed by more than a hundred personalities to appear in the Sunday newspaper denounces the remarks deemed “homophobic” made by the Minister Delegate for Territorial Communities, Caroline Cayeux.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Friday that the “incident” involving her minister, who apologized, was closed and that she remained “at work”.
For the authors of the forum, Caroline Cayeux “deliberately chose to maintain homophobic remarks: it is certainly reprehensible. And only a judge should decide on it.”
“The question is whether the government, in its duty of solidarity, validates the position of one of its members, and whether the majority subscribes to its attitude”, can we read in the text notably signed by the neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik, the former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the writer Philippe Besson and the president of the SOS group Jean-Marc Borello, a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.
“It is a question of defending not this or that community, but respect for the principle of equality and equality by a member of the government”, we add.
Public Snat had asked the former mayor of Beauvais on the right on Tuesday if she confirmed comments made in 2013 on the Taubira law authorizing marriage and adoption for same-sex couples. She had then spoken of reforms “of caprice” and of a “design that goes against nature”.
Caroline Cayeux, appointed on July 4 in the “Borne 2” government, caused trouble by maintaining her words, accompanied by this remark: “I must tell you when even I have a lot of friends among these people. Frankly, it is a bad trial that I am being made and it has upset me a lot.”
“How to accept that a member of the executive, whose primary role is to ensure the application of the laws, can call ‘these people’ French citizens”, wonders the column published in the JDD.
Several associations fighting against homophobia announced on Wednesday the filing of a complaint against Caroline Cayeux. (Report Elizabeth Pineau)