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France swimmer suffers broken nose in anti-gay attack
A French swimmer has suffered a broken nose in an anti-gay attack that forced her to withdraw from a major competition.
Mélanie Hénique, 23, and two female friends were approached by four men as they left a restaurant in Amiens, northern France on 26 June.
‘They asked us for cigarettes but I felt it was not for that,’ she said.
‘We were going to leave but they started insulting us and everything happened very quickly. One of the guys has blocked us, I did not see it coming, the guy hit me, I was completely stunned, I do not know what happened after I saw my friends on the floor. After, we went to emergencies.’
Hénique said she ‘fully accepts’ her homosexuality but preferred to keep her private life private.
However, she felt it was her duty to make public the facts, ‘if only to help all those who dare not complain. It happens too often.’
‘I have been insulted, but have never been hit,’ she continued, without wanting to specify the ‘violent’ homophobic slurs.
‘There was a lot of hatred. Psychologically, it is a shock, I did not expect it at all,’ she said.
‘I went complaint Friday (3 July) in Amiens, where it happened. It was important to go to complain. It is a serious act, homophobic, it is unacceptable, it must be punished.’
Hénique had to postpone training for 10 days after the attack and was a forced to withdraw from the French Open over the weekend.
She won bronze in the 50m butterfly at the world championships in 2011 and has been selected to compete again at the 2014 world championships in Kazan, Russia in August.
The post France swimmer suffers broken nose in anti-gay attack appeared first on Gay Star News.
Darren Wee
www.gaystarnews.com/article/france-swimmer-suffers-broken-nose-in-anti-gay-attack/
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