French President-elect Emmanuel Macron smeared by MP as ‘pretty little gay boy’
A former Danish MP has branded France’s President-elect Emmanuel Macron a “pretty little gay boy” in a live TV interview.
Mr Macron is set to take office this month after his victory over far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen.
The centrist leader has been married to his former school teacher Brigitte Trogneux since 2007, but was subjected to repeated homophobic smears on the campaign trail.
They don’t seem to be going away now he’s in office, either – with one former Danish MP mocking Macron in a TV interview.
Søren Krarup, a former MP from the right-wing Danish People’s Party made the jibe during a debate on TV channel DR2.
According to The Local, Mr Krakup said: “I would have given her (Le Pen) a vote in the absence of [a better option].
“I would never vote for that pretty little gay boy, I was about to say.”
When the host challenged his remark, Mr Krakup adds: “Ah, that’s also wrong… I would have used a slightly nicer expression, but when standing face to face with you here, it can often be difficult to find it.
“I would have said well-behaved little schoolboy.”
Last month Macron banned Russian state news outlets from his events, after Kremlin-owned outlet Sputnik published ‘gay’ smears alleging a “persistent rumour that [Macron] is secretly gay and living a ‘double life’”, and also accusing him of being in the pocket of a “very wealthy gay lobby”.
The politician, who has been married to his former school teacher Brigitte Trogneux since 2007, lashed out at the homophobic assertions.
In the interview he said: “Two things are vile behind the implication: to say that it is not possible for a man living with an older woman to be anything other than a homosexual or a hidden gigolo is misogynous. And it’s also homophobia.
“If I had been a homosexual, I would say it and I would live it.”
Macron, a supporter of LGBT rights, dedicated an entire section of his manifesto to LGBT issues.
In it he pledged to challenge homophobic in everyday life, and to tackle anti-LGBT discrimination in the workplace.
The candidate said he would scale up random checks of employers’ compliance with equality laws, while also “naming and shaming” those found to have discriminated.
He also promises to defend progress on equal marriage, hailing the law as a “fundamental achievement” of the past five years and an “an enrichment of what the family is in France that shows its importance to all of us”.
Elsewhere in the document he commits to opening up IVF and medically assisted fertility treatments to single women and female same-sex couples.
In one key concession, the former Socialist minister rules out reform of France’s strict surrogacy laws, any changes to which would be strongly opposed by the centre-right members of his unity coalition.
However, he does pledge to ensure that families with children born via international surrogacy will have their full rights protected, adding that it is wrong to “treat these children as foreigners in their own country”.
The biggest-selling tabloid in Russia this week called Macron a ‘gay psychopath’.
