The LGBT+ Pride March of Paris/Île-de-France did not emerge out of nowhere: it is the direct heir to uprisings, struggles, and solidarities forged in urgency and anger.
It all began on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a queer bar in New York City. That night, yet another police raid escalated. Lesbians, gay men, trans people, drag queens, racialized people, sex workers, all those whom society sought to render invisible, refused to submit. They resisted for several days.
This spontaneous uprising marked a historic turning point. It sparked a global movement for the defense of LGBT+ rights.
One year later, commemorative and protest marches were organized across the United States. The principle spread: to march so as never to be silent again.
In France, the first independent march took place on June 25, 1977, in Paris, organized by the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) and the Homosexual Liberation Group (GLH). Bringing together several hundred people between Place de la République and Place des Fêtes, it remained marginal yet it marked a historic step: for the first time, LGBT+ people took to the streets to claim their pride and denounce discrimination.
The 1980s were shaped by a dual movement:
- Growing visibility of LGBT+ struggles, driven by collectives such as CUARH, Gays for Freedoms, Red Dykes, and Act Up.
- An unprecedented public health crisis: HIV/AIDS, ignored or instrumentalized by public authorities, devastated the community. The street became a space of mourning and remembrance — but also of radical resistance.
It was above all in 1981 that the movement reached a new turning point. On April 4, at the call of several collectives, 10,000 people marched in Paris to demand the repeal of the so-called “homosexuality offense,” still in force at the time. This march took place just weeks before the left came to power. The election of François Mitterrand in May led, a few months later, to the end of police registries targeting homosexuals and the alignment of the age of consent for same-sex relationships.
The mobilizations of the 1970s and 1980s — led by groups such as CUARH, Red Dykes, GLH, and later Act Up–Paris — helped anchor Pride Marches as a central tool for visibility and political demands. The contingents grew, became more politicized, and turned into spaces of memory — especially during the AIDS crisis — as well as arenas of collective resistance.
In 1999, Inter-LGBT took over the organization of the Paris Pride March, with the aim of structuring it, strengthening its political demands, and connecting activist struggles with the lived realities of LGBT+ people.
