Les Veilleurs, or the Watchers (movement) are, as a "non-formal movement associated" with LMPT, in opposition to homosexual marriage and conducting peaceful demonstrations in the form of the sit-ins. Widely considered by some as being "reactionary" , this group is composed mainly of Catholics or "Catholics of identity".
They gather in silence at night, around candles, to listen to one of them read a text of prose or poetry. This movement was born following the detention on the night of Sunday, April 14 to Monday, April 15, 2013 , of sixty-seven opponents of the bill who came to show their support for opposition MPs in the National Assembly. The initiators of the movement then considered that they had to "find another way to make themselves heard". Defining itself as "apolitical" and "aconfessional", this majority Catholic movement claims to be part of a non-violent political tradition.
The movement quickly spread to more than 110 French cities and abroad (Jerusalem, Rome, Milan). According to the organizers, at the end of April, fifty rallies were held with a total of 5,000 people. Some of these rallies were disrupted by counter-demonstrators in favor of same-sex marriage. See FEMEN above.
Wishing to campaign in the long term, Les Veilleurs announced at the end of April 2013 they plan to meet every week until the presidential elections that take place in 2017. On August 10, 2013 , a small group begins a "walk of the Watchers" between Rochefort and Nantes , which ends in Paris on August 31. While only three marchers have followed the entire route, the police prefecture nevertheless prohibits the final "demonstration" in Paris, for security reasons. A final vigil is held despite this prohibition in the Place de la Concorde and bringing together several hundred people in a demonstration without incident.
In December 2013, Les Veilleurs meet for a monthly rally in Paris and hold about fifty gatherings a week in the provinces. Determined not to limit their opposition to the same law on same-sex marriage, they intend to "count in the public debate on all questions of ethics and societal issues".
NO to same-sex unions
Since the beginning of the opposition to the Taubira law , protesters attached directly or indirectly to LMPT oppose the marriage of same-sex couples and dispute the very use of the term " marriage " for the partners of same sex. Once the reform is approved, LMPT calls for its abolition. The members of LMPT are more divided against the possibility of civil union open to same-sex couples: some, like Frigide Barjot , consider this type of union as an acceptable alternative to marriage, others like Tugdual Derville , oppose it firmly.
Differences of opinion were stifled in May 2013, with the departure of Frigide Barjot from LMPT. Ludovine de La Rochère then declares that the organization "does not take a position on the Civil Union. She is not there for that ". On the side of supporters of the movement, the question is still important because a survey put online by LMPT in January 2015 shows that nearly two-thirds of respondents are in favor of the existence of a civil union reserved for homosexual couples.
NO to same-sex parenting
The members of LMPT refuse homosexuality in all its forms and condemn any modification of the civil code that would induce its recognition. They reject adoption by same-sex couples (the only form of homo-parenting provided for by the Taubira law), but also medically assisted procreation (ART) and surrogacy (GPA).
According to LMPT, same-sex parenting is harmful because it leads to "a breach of equality in the depriving a minor of the intimacy of a woman or a man in his/her childhood". The organization and its activists also see in the legalization of homosexual parenthood a risk of " commodification of babies " and deny in particular the possibility of an "ethical GPA".
After the decision of the European Court of Human Rights to condemn France for failing to recognize the "parentage between a father and his biological children born of a GPA abroad" (26 June 2014) the LMPT is campaigning for Paris to reject European jurisprudence. It is thus opposed to the granting of French nationality to children born by GPA abroad and to the recognition of the genetic links existing between them and their biological parents.
NO to the "theory of gender"
The members of LMPT also condemn the supposed teaching of " gender theory" in school, a theory whose existence is however refuted by the entire scientific community, which speaks only of " studies of a very different definition". The LMPT justifies the use of the term by the use made by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem , then General Councilor of the Rhône , in August 2011 and this is despite the fact of his statements in June 2013 asserting that "gender theory does not exist".
The activists of LMPT thus oppose the ABCD of equality , a teaching program whose stated objective is to fight against sexism and gender stereotypes. According to Ludovine de La Rochère , the government's program aims to "deconstruct [...] what the family has brought to the child" whereas gender stereotypes "are necessary [because] they are the expression of femininity and masculinity, benchmarks that allow one to identify oneself and to identify others as being male or female ". The LMPT also accuses Najat Vallaud-Belkacem of "pushing for indoctrination, to make students look like neutral, undifferentiated beings".
This opposition, reinforced by the actions of extreme right-wing activist Farida Belghoul (in the origin of the "Days of withdrawal from school" campaign), finally leads to a retreat by the government, which then announces the withdrawal of the ABCDs from equality programme June 25 , 2014.
Child exploitation?
One of the stated priorities of Le Manif Pour Tout is the "best interests of the child" and the refusal of its " commodification " . For some detractors, there is a contradiction between these statements and the supposed tendency of protesters of La Manif for all to put forward their own children to denounce the homoparentalité . Thus, for Olivier Picard, author of the book Marriage, sex and tradition, these parents "do not feel any embarrassment to use their offspring to defend their values as adults on the Parisian pavement" . He adds that"They expose their offspring to the inevitable dangers of a large-scale political gathering" and engage in "conditioning" on young people "even before they have acquired a minimum of maturity to analyze their own sexual identity".
This debate bounced back with an interview of Mgr Di Falco, August 15, 2014 in the Dauphiné Libéré , claiming that children did not have to be in these demonstrations. The spokesperson for LMPT responded , stressing the importance of family engagement, and this was reported in the same newspaper 31 August 2014.
In the same vein and following the violence that followed the demonstration of March 24, 2013, some of the media (such as Le Plus, The Huffington Post and Rue89) suggested the use, by demonstrators, of children placed in the first line facing the CRS was hardly a responsible act. In a video posted by Rue89 , we hear a demonstrator from LMPT declare: "We put the children up front".
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