The French tabloid Closer claims
far-right leader Florian Philippot is gay.
The magazine ran photographs of
Philippot and his alleged boyfriend in a romantic escapade in Vienna.
Its front cover includes a photo of the men next to the headline
“Yes to love for everyone.”
Philippot is a vice president of the
ultra conservative, nationalist Front National (FN) Party and a close
adviser to Marine Le Pen, who heads the party. The FN's bread and
butter issue is its opposition to immigration but Le Pen is also on
record opposing marriage equality.
Le
Pen and other leaders criticized Closer for invading
Philippot's privacy.
“It's intolerable,” Le Pen told
French radio station Europe1. “If the publications accused of
invading people's privacy were forced to pay back the money they made
from the revelations, they wouldn't do it anymore.”