Gays like to brag about the fact than when an area falls into decay, the best that can happen is that the gay community moves in, takes over and do what they’re good at: Renovating, opening up small boutiques and spreading the magic and charm so that everything becomes beautiful. And voilà, the area will attract everybody.
From a swamp to a larder
In the case of Le Marais this is very true. But the story goes back more than a thousand years, when the area was one big swamp which was drained and named the city’s larder, since a great part of the vegetables were grown here.
From the 17th Century and a few centuries ahead, the fields were confiscated and used for housing by the French nobility and the upper bourgeoisie who built the elegant ”hôtels particuliers” (large private houses) that are still predominant.
Discrete gay life
The financial ups and downs of Paris caused the decay of the buildings and the entire area, and in 1962, minister of culture, André Malraux, had to intervene and force through legislation in order to save some of the historical buildings from being torn down to make place for a new highway. This brought the area into focus and during the 80’s the first gay bars opened up in Le Marais. The bars were very discrete with dark window panes and closed doors, since homosexuality was regarded as a disease and was punishable by French law until 1981.
During the 90’s the area became known as ”le gai village”, and today the gay and the straight community live happily together.
France on the front edge
he evolution in Le Marais was a precursor of the evolution in the rest of France. In 2000, the country established the PACS, a sort of civilian marriage for both heteros and homos. And in 2001 the Parisians elected an openly homosexuel mayor, Bertrand Delanoë. This was long before the extremely liberal Berlin got it’s homosexual mayor, and without the press making any particular fuzz about it.
France is known as a very conservative country with a strong political right wing and big problems with the integration of immigrants. But in the homosexual department, the evolution has been very positive in the latter years, and the annual Gay Pride in June attracts 800.000 people out into the streets. There is no longer any reason to be discrete.
By Walther Griesé
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