During our second COVID-19 lockdown here in Paris this time last year, I began researching for a book I’m writing about the history of gay Paris (and if you are a regular reader of this column, you will probably enjoy the book when it comes out, so follow me at MonsieurBuckJones.Substack.com to find out when it is published).
One of the fascinating bits of history I came across pertains to the origin of the modern French gay pride movement. If America’s LGBTQ+ liberation movement can be said to have started with that first act of defiance at Stonewall by Marsha P.
Johnson and the other activists enraged by police repression, it can be said to have begun in France at a radio station. Prior to the cultural and sexual revolution of ’60s