Paris: Thousands gather to protest same-sex marriage in France

Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Paris today in opposition to the same-sex marriage bill proposed by President Francois Hollande and his Socialist Party.

Organisers reserved five high-speed trains and 900 buses to bring protesters from provincial towns to the capital, some before dawn, to join Parisians and display the extent of the opposition that has built up in recent weeks. "Nobody expected this two or three months ago," said Frigide Barjot, a flamboyant comedian leading the "Demo for All" she described as "multicultural, multireligious and multisexual." Strongly backed by the Catholic hierarchy, lay activists have mobilised a coalition of church-going families, political conservatives, Muslims, evangelicals and even homosexuals opposed to gay marriage. "We want this draft law to be withdrawn," Patricia Soullier, a protest organiser, told BFM-TV before boarding a Paris-bound train in Montpellier in the south of France. Hollande angered opponents of same-sex marriage by trying to avoid public debate on the reform, which Justice Minister Christiane Taubira described as "a change in civilisation", and wavering about some of its details.

Reports vary in terms of the number of protesters that took part, with some press accounts estimating the crowd "in the tens of thousands" while the organizers say more than 800,000.