An MP belonging to French President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche! (LREM) has compared members of a pro-traditional marriage movement to radical Islamic terrorists.
LREM MP Marlène Schiappa, who serves as Secretary of Equality, made her comments earlier this week, comparing the Manif Pour Tous movement, which protested against same-sex marriage, to Islamic radicals.
She alleged the “existence of an ideological convergence” between the two, Europe 1 reports.
“There is an explosion of anti-Semitic acts, but also homophobic,” Ms Schiappa said, before asserting that “there is an alliance between the people of the extreme right and the Islamists, who unite in fact in this fight.”
“There are slogans of the Manif Pour Tous that are launched in the suburbs,” she added, referring to the heavily migrant-populated Paris suburbs which have seen a number of both anti-Semitic and homophobic attacks in recent years.
The Manif Pour Tous movement reacted to the comments in a press release, saying they would be lodging a formal defamation complaint against Schiappa in court.
“These scandalous remarks are an insult to the millions of French people mobilized since 2012 to peacefully show their attachment to the family, the first place of solidarity and refuge for the most vulnerable. These remarks are also an insult to the victims of Islamist terrorism whose suffering they relativize,” the group said.
Schiappa’s comments are not the first controversial statements from the LREM MP in recent months. In January she proposed that “foreign powers” could be behind the anti-establishment Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement.
“Who finances the rioters? Foreign powers? The question is not incongruous, given the positions of Italian officials,” she suggested.
The comments were in reference to Italian Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio expressing support for the Yellow Vests and later meeting with several of their leaders.
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