France makes a point of advertising itself as officially gay-friendly, "the gay-friendly destination par excellence". So from time to time Pave takes notice of how pink France is faring.

COLOGNE, GERMANY, GETS 2010 GAY GAMES

November 14, 2005 (Yahoo/Gay.com U.K.) - Cologne, Germany, has won the bid to host the 2010 Gay Games, beating out finalist cities Paris and Johannesburg, South Africa.

The first Gay Games were held in San Francisco in 1982 with 1,350 participants.
Subsequent Gay Games were held in San Francisco (1986; 3,500 participants), Vancouver (1990; 7,300 participants), New York (1994; 12,500 participants), Amsterdam (1998; 13,000 participants), and Sydney (2002; 11,000 participants).

Hhmmm, so homophobic America not only inaugurated the games, it has played host twice, while progessive gay-friendly France has yet to get a friendly gay nod.

It has always struck us as odd that gays should be singled out by France for friendliness. Is she not friendly to other communities? If so, why not mention her expansive chumminess? If not, why not? Of course we would faint dead away were France to come out and announce herself America-friendly, but what about Arabs and Africans, with whom she claims special relationships, is she not friendly to them? No, we don't mean the ones she has warehoused in the banlieues. She doesn't give a fig about them. No, what about the ones with money? What is Mr. Mugabe to think? Is not France a beacon of friendliness to layabout Saudi princes? Hey! Jack, spread the love around a bit.

Then there is this from the police blotter:

LESBIAN GANG LEADER GETS 28 YEARS FOR MURDER OF BAKER

November 19, 2005 (Telegraph) - The leader of a lesbian gang was jailed for 28 years last night for the murder of a country baker in a robbery described by the prosecution as revealing a clash of cultures between "two kinds of France".

The country has been shocked by the killing of Sylvain Bétrix, 22, who was shot dead as he rushed to the aid of his wife when Magali Rossi burst into their bakery in the old Roman town of Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert, near St Etienne, brandishing a hunting rifle.

Rossi, now 34, lived with her lover, Anne-Sophie Royol, 33, Royol's daughter and a third woman, Emilie Després, 22, on unemployment benefits in what the judge called a "ménage à trois" in Marseilles.

The prosecuting lawyer, André Merle, contrasted the life of Mr Bétrix, who rose early each day and worked long hours, and those of Rossi and her two accomplices, "who don't work and don't especially look for work".

He told the court in St Etienne: "These are two kinds of France colliding with each other. It is for you to say which France we ought to protect and which one we must repress."

Last night's verdict went beyond the demands of the prosecution, which had sought a 25-year sentence for Rossi for theft aggravated by violence leading to death. Royol was jailed for 10 years for complicity and Després for three years, two of them suspended, for destroying evidence.

Now we do not think Mdm. Rossi deserves any special pleading because she is gay, but the French, who are always moiling in the subtext, could hardly mistake the significance of M. Merle's condemnation, not of a heartless murderess, but of the culture she represents. It is plain to us that M. Merle means the state-pampered criminal class. Ah, but there is that glaring subtext, that inescapable French nuance, that French insistence on a meaning other than what is said.

Then again French prosecutors are given to careless locutions.

PFFT (What is this?): Pale pink 3 | Rayonnement français 0