Fear over the city: the ravages of community progressivism

Has political progressivism allowed the mafias to expand and the rejection of difference to grow? In the light of the darkness whose lightning strikes the city as violently as a rain of bullets on Saint-Gilles… We have gone from gusts of wind to bursts of Kalashnikov fire: climate change is indeed here. Awareness, on the other hand… is still waiting! For years we have heard: "We will not manage to improve the lives of drug users with a repressive policy" or "Repression is ineffective if it is not accompanied by a prevention policy." That is what a French Green MP argued in the gay magazine Têtu on 5 February, defending a bill giving priority to prevention. Except that, here, this approach has been at the heart of our policies for years, in a commendable spirit of harm reduction for users. Unfortunately, the absence of a firm balance with effective law enforcement has created a vacuum, paradoxically allowing drug trafficking to expand. The finding is terrible: a security failure compounded by harmful consequences for sexual minorities and, by extension, for other communities. Doing politics also means learning from your failures and correcting them before it is too late. This security disorder is not confined to the street; it is reflected in the growing unease within the very communities that feel abandoned by these policies. In the progressive bubble, values are carried like banners, even by people who do not belong to the community directly concerned. Proof of this is the homophobic assault suffered by the police officer who chairs the LGBT Flag association, in the Marais district of Paris on 30 August. Unia and the IEFH had already warned, in a report published last year, about the rise in assaults and rejection, despite our country's progressive reputation. That is where the shoe pinches: we are facing a double failure. Today, more and more people from the gay community are sounding the alarm. I interviewed a member of that community for nearly an hour. We are no longer dealing only with a societal rejection of gay people by part of the population, but also with rejection within the community itself! Le Soir addressed this issue on 21 August in an article titled "When some 'LGB' want to do without trans people", quoting a 24-year-old gay man: "I swear I feel bad about thinking this. But sometimes I tell myself that things were quieter before the trans question took up all the space." "I have already had very heated debates with friends about it. It has become really hard to discuss the subject calmly." My interviewee, for his part, expresses unease at what he perceives as a proliferation of 'gender identities' (which he puts, as he sees it, at… 76!). He believes that this fragmentation creates deep incomprehension, both among the general public and within the community itself. He calls for "putting an end to boxing people in" and refocusing on the human being and on consent. Subcultures such as 'furries' or 'therians' are cited as examples of public expressions that can cause puzzlement. He distinguishes them from drag queens, whom he sees as belonging to a form of burlesque art, and fears that these phenomena, amplified by social media, may harm the community's image and the struggles waged for equality. He worries that the 'excess' of certain demands may sabotage the goals of acceptance and generate backlash, shattering what has been won. He then describes parties organised through apps where guests find themselves in a group without having been told, with an 'easy' supply of drugs. "Before Covid, we met for a drink and more if we hit it off… now taking drugs has become the norm." He also mentions those three-day 'marathons', alternating parties, saunas and bars, encouraged by the city to attract tourists, but which end up harming the community. Finally, he points to the drift of dating apps that have (gradually, if I may say so) strayed from their purpose, in favour of 'chemsex' encounters under 3-MMC. These excesses are not merely a feeling. A French study published in August 2026 in the Annales Médico-Psychologiques (Grégoire et al.) warns about assaults facilitated by substances in chemsex. The authors stress that chemical vulnerability and consent under the influence create a high-risk context that is still far too little examined. In Brussels, a BBC report on 28 August, interviewing a senior police officer, reported more than 100 trafficking-related shootings in 2025 and already more than 65 in 2026, with over 200 dealing spots recorded in the capital. What, in conclusion, can be said about progressive streaming platforms which, behind their benevolent image, have become the opposite of the cause they claim to defend? Part of public opinion, sometimes manipulated by 'conservative' currents, turns their editorial choices into a weapon against the very communities they support. We cannot bury our heads in the sand in an ultra-connected society where debates across the Atlantic translate into homophobia on other continents; the issue goes beyond us, jeopardising along the way the essential fight against HIV. In the end, the main reproach that can be levelled at political progressivism is that, through its blind spots, it gave birth to its exact opposite: 'masculinism' and the rejection of difference, while amplifying and trivialising the use of substances that are harmful to public health, and letting the mafias proliferate. Without ever, deep down, daring to say: "We got it wrong"…