By banning the Budapest Pride march, Viktor Orban is trying to divide his opposition
Just 24 hours before the Budapest Pride March − scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 28, in the heart of the Hungarian capital − there was still no clarity on whether the parade would be able to proceed and under what conditions. Amid complete legal uncertainty, the nationalist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban passed a law in March aimed at banning the event – which has been organized annually since 1997 – and continued to threaten participants with fines of up to €500 and prison sentences "of up to one year."
Justice Minister Bence Tuzson even wrote to the embassy staff from countries supporting the parade – including the French embassy – to remind them of the legal framework of the law on "child protection," which prohibits the representation of homosexuality to minors. Meanwhile, organizers and Budapest's opposition mayor, Gergely Karacsony, maintained that transforming Pride into a "municipal event" rendered the national police ban illegitimate.
Despite this uncertainty, the French government announced on June 26 that it would send its ambassador for LGBTQ+ rights, Jean-Marc Berthon, to Budapest on Saturday. He was expected to join some 60 MEPs from the left, green and centrist groups who had announced their participation in Budapest, in addition to the European commissioner for equality, Belgian social democrat Hadja Lahbib and dozens of national lawmakers from various European Union countries. The presence of so many political figures was set to turn this Pride into an unprecedented pan-European protest against Orban's increasingly authoritarian drift.
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