Anti-gay marriage group the French
Spring (Printemps Francais) is facing the possibility of being banned
amid claims its comments amount to a call to violence.
Four days after French President
Francois Hollande signed a law legalizing marriage and adoption for
gay and lesbian couples, the French Spring issued a statement in
which it threatened to target “the government and all its
appendices, the collaborating political parties and lobbies where the
ideological programs are developed and the organs which spread it.”
According to a report by FRANCE
24, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls called the statement
“unacceptable.”
“This is a call to violence,” Valls
told France Info. “Justice will have to act because it is
intolerable that in the Republic there can be these messages of hate.
There is no place for groups that challenge the Republic, democracy
and which also attack individuals.”
Opponents have said that they will
continue their calls to repeal the law and have planned a giant
protest in Paris to take place on Sunday.
In recent remarks to Le Parisien,
Frigide Barjot, the movement's most visible leader, distanced herself
from Beatrice Bourges, who leads the French Spring.
Bourges has denied the charges.
“It means that everything that is not
politically correct or conformist will be punished in our country,”
Bourges said on French television. “I'm sad that in this country
we have reached such a denial of democracy. There has never been a
call to violence.”