France throws rightwing activist who protested a kids’ drag story event in prison

While police have often shown a pretty lax attitude towards extremists who protest outside of family-friendly drag story hour events, one activist just got sentenced to four months in prison for his protest.

Paul Carton, 24, was found guilty on several charges in connection to a May 13 protest outside of a drag story hour in Saint-Senoux, a rural town with a population of 1,822 in Brittany, France. The drag story hour was organized by the city for children ages three to six. The drag queens who participated were dressed as a robot, a princess, and a snail.

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Carton and around 20 other members of the far-right organization L’Oriflamme Rennes protested the event and chanted slogans including, “Moins de trans, plus de France” (“Less trans, more France”), “LGBT dégénérés” (“LGBT degenerates”), and “Non aux drag queens dans l’espace public” (“No drag queens in public spaces”). Carton admitted in court in September to having used a megaphone while chanting the slogans.

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L’Oriflamme Rennes’s description on X, formerly known as Twitter, says that the group’s goal is to “save our nation and our civilization.”

Carton told the court that the town’s government was guilty of turning children into “a malleable flesh for its decadent delusions.”

Prosecutors asked the court to sentence Carton to six months in prison after he was found guilty on charges of promoting hatred on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, organizing an undeclared protest, hiding one’s face in public (which is illegal under France’s ban on face veils), and public defamation. They argued that he already had a six-month commuted sentence from an unrelated incident where he broke a local elected official’s window so he shouldn’t get another commuted sentence.

The court sentenced him to four months in prison. He was also hit with a 500-euro ($527) fine and forced to pay 800 euros ($844) to three civil parties involved in the case.

“I don’t regret what I did because I believe that the important thing is defending our country,” he told the court.

The right denounced the drag story hour event the moment it was announced, with members of the far-right Rassemblement National party distributing flyers that called it “an indoctrination of [our] children.”

Saint-Senoux Mayor Antinéa Leclerc said that the children didn’t see the protestors, who showed up in the community wearing black with their faces covered in ski masks, but “the teenagers who were hanging out across the street were shocked.” L’Oriflamme Rennes claimed responsibility for the protest.

“This isn’t the first such cowardly action in Brittany,” said National Assemblymember Mathilde Hignet of the leftwing La France Insoumise party. She represents the region that includes Saint-Senoux. “I firmly condemn the attack on an event organized for young children. It’s 2023 and people attending a cultural event in a library shouldn’t be the targets of the far-right.”