Paris mayor pledges to ban ‘no whites’ feminist festival

THE mayor of Paris has pledged to stop a black feminist festival in the French capital because white people are “banned” from taking part.

Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist city council leader, threatened to sue for discrimination leaders of the Mwasi “Afro-feminist” association, which is planning to hold the inaugural Nyansapo Fest over two days in July.

She promised to seek to ban the festival after the association said the main event, to build “Afro-feminist strategies to end racial, patriarchal, colonial and capitalist violence”, which makes up 80 per cent of the festival, would be reserved for black women only.

A second debate on “Afro-struggles” would be open to black people of both sexes, it said, while a third, on “decolonial feminism”, would be open to women of all ethnic origins who had suffered from racism. Only one exhibition is open to all.

Ms Hidalgo said on Twitter that she condemned the organisation “of this event, ‘prohibited to white people’.”

“I am asking for this festival to be banned,” she said, adding she also reserved the right “to prosecute the organisers for discrimination”.

Anti-racism groups condemned the festival, with SOS Racisme calling the event “a mistake, even an abomination, because it wallows in ethnic separation, whereas anti-racism is a movement which seeks to go beyond race”.

The controversy erupted after Wallerand de Saint-just, regional head of the far-right Front National party, called on Ms Hidalgo on Friday to explain why the capital was putting on an event “promoting a concept that is blatantly racist and anti-republican”.

In a statement, Mwasi said: “We are saddened to see certain anti-racist associations letting themselves be manipulated like this.”