Free Republic

In a new autobiography France's best-known gay politician Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe has delivered a broadside against the country's prevailing homophobia and attacked President Jacques Chirac for failing to fulfil campaign promises to defend gay rights. The 54 year-old Socialist, who in 2001 was elected the capital's first ever left-wing mayor, says that French attitudes have certainly developed in the last 20 years - largely as a result of AIDS - and "in some quarters to be homophobic is seen as a sign of poor taste." But he says the progress is relative. "Outside certain circles homosexuality is still something...