Self-descent classes are offered to LGBT+ people in Nice.
Fake weapons, grips to control your opponent… In this self-defense course in Nice, you learn to respond to attacks. More specifically against people from the LGBT+ community.
Students learn to anticipate and react in the event of an assault. “Verbal attacks are regular. We have all been verbally attacked and threatened. Physical attacks are a little rarer,” explains a student at the microphone of BFM Côte d’Azur.
“It is important to simulate it, it is also an attitude and a look to have. The aggressor must not feel that we are a victim or that we are afraid,” another student points out.
“Armed Assaults”
These specific courses aim to protect against these often violent attacks. Elena, a teacher of this course, explains: “It is a special LGBT+ course because the attacks are not the same. What we work on the most are armed attacks and the attacks of more people”.
In Nice, dozens of attacks against LGBT+ people are recorded every year. Erwan le Hô, president of the Lgbt center on the Côte d’Azur, “is a relatively stable figure. These attacks target transgender and male homosexual people. And these occur mainly in public spaces and in the middle of the night”.
An assault at the Trois Diables bar
According to the president of the LGBT center, 80% of people who are victims of homophobic or transphobic attacks do not file a complaint.
At the end of December, three people were the victims of a homophobic attack in the Les Trois Diables bar.
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi had indicated that he wanted to shed “full light on this attack and on all the means mobilized to identify the perpetrators. Homophobia and all forms of hatred are unacceptable”. Four people were finally brought before the prosecution on December 29, they will be tried next June.
