Thousands of participants at Europride in Thessaloniki

Thousands of walkers of all ages closed ten days of celebrations for the LGBTQ+ community on Saturday in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, which hosted EuroPride for the first time, organized in a different European city each year. “Hundreds of volunteers came from all over Europe to help make Thessaloniki Pride bigger and stronger. What is happening today is fantastic. We are very happy to see thousands of people participating in this parade,” commented Lucas, 27, from Portugal.

According to the police, more than 10,000 people participated in the parade, under heavy police surveillance to prevent any incident in the context of hate speech on social networks targeting the LGBTQ+ community. “Thessaloniki was chosen in particular because of the slow progress in terms of the rights of the LGBT community. Today we are sending a very important message: through solidarity we will succeed in every corner of Europe,” Apostolis Karampairis, spokesperson for Thessaloniki Pride, told AFP.

“Despite the adoption of the law on same-sex couples, there remains a long way to go for the sexual identity of each human being to be accepted by the whole of society,” said Dimitris Stefanakis. , 23-year-old student. Last February, Greece said “yes” to homosexual marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples, a major societal reform carried out by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who saw it as “a turning point for human rights of man”.

Counter-demonstrations banned

However, the ruling party, New Democracy, recently estimated that the new legislation had had a negative impact on its results in the last European elections, by discouraging “certain traditional voters”. The Greek police had banned counter-demonstrations during Europride.

On Friday, a 34-year-old man was arrested for calling for a counter-demonstration “against the destruction of the family, to resist the LGBTQ junta”. Protesters holding colorful balloons, flags, whistles and drums danced and sang throughout the march Saturday. On some signs, one could read “love makes family”, “parents proud of their LGBT children” or “one law is not enough”.

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