This is a series of translations of a bunch of blog posts on the French blogosphere about a pro-abort counterdemonstration that occurred on Saturday April 8th. In a nutshell: about 80 people were to show up at the cathedral in Toulouse to pray for a culture of life, but an hour before the ceremony, 500 pro-aborts showed to physically stop them from entering the cathedral, to vent their spleen, as so forth, and scream "death to Catholics" and other slogans of hatred. No one was arrested, as far as a I can tell. These are the translations of the blog posts:
This is a translation (and elaboration) of a French post on Le Salon Belge .
http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/04/avortement_viol.html
About a 80-100 people showed up yesterday, Saturday April 8th, at St-Etienne Cathedral to pray for a culture of life. The call to prayer was launched by SOS Tout-Petits, a French pro-life group. Five hundred anarchists, leftists and other rabble showed up to disrupt the proceedings. Note that the crowd was probably so numerous because a French left-wing mainstream daily posted a very biased article, in which there was a call by leftists to manifest against this prayer ceremony.
So the Catholics came out of the Cathedral to a hysterical crowd, screaming all kinds of nasty things, including "Death to Catholics". Some pro-aborts threw some eggs.
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Here's a communique of SOS Tout-Petits, the group that organized the prayer ceremony.
http://xantrailles.blogspot.com/2006/04/communiqu-de-presse-suite-aux-vnements.html
Basically, it says that the prayer ceremony was launched at the instigation of Pope John Paul II in August 2004. The ceremony was to be held in front of the cathedral at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It was an assembly that was cleaed with the Prefecture. At 2 o'clock, at the instigation of some anarchists of the Confederation National du Travail, a crowd of pro-aborts showed up to manifest their opposition. Their counter-protest was an illegal assembly. The gathering was animated by a very violent spirit of hate. Through physical violence, the demonstrators attempted to stop the pray-ers from expressing themselves, even though it's guaranteed by the Universal Rights of Man of 1789. The police had to intervene to protect the pray-ers, and get out their shields to protect themselves. Some of the pro-aborts threw objects at people praying on their knees. There were extremely violent pro-abort speeches, to the effect of "death to Catholics"; "If Mary had had an abortion, we wouldn't be in this trouble"; "Two boards, three nails, that's the solution! [referring to crucifixion], on top of insults to Christ and Pope Benedict XVI and things holy to a Christian. There were blasphemous caricatures, such as a cross envelopped in a condom and that type of thing. The communique goes on to denounce the state of affairs, how basic freedoms, like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and mobility are repressed by violence. SOS Tout-Petits asks that we pray for these people.
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Here's a summary of a MSM article:
http://actu.voila.fr/Depeche/ext--francais--ftmms--sante/060408141722.zswtqpww.html
Basically the article relates a lot of the same information that I put above. They said there were about 80 pro-lifers there. They also underscore that an ex-councilor of the Front National was there (the ultra-nationalist group), to discredit the group.
The article reports that the pro-abort side had slogans like:
"Our Liberty, abortion, our right, our choice"
"It's my body, it's my life, I choose"
"Two boards, three nails, that's the solution"
The pro-lifers came outside to pray on the porch and were protected by a "cordon de CRS" (security cordon? Not sure what that is).
The article mentions that eggs were thrown at the protesters. Some of the pro-abort women flashed their breasts. Some had signs like "religious abuse can kill" and "A child when I want it". These women were wearing masks.
One pro-lifer is quoted as saying that the police did not act in time, and denounced the fact a small minority in France is running everything. The report did not fail to report that the pro-lifer insisted on being represented in favour of "La France nationale" (i.e. anti-immigration, etc)
One pro-abort leader said that it's crazy that people have to mobilize to protect a law that has already been in existence for 31 years.
The pro-life side called on a "huissier" (not sure what the equivalent is in English-- Justice of the Peace) to complain about the fact the police did not act fast enough.
