Paris mayor calls for ban on black feminist festival over 'discrimination against white people'

A black feminist festival due to be held in Paris should be banned for excluding white people, the city’s mayor has said.

Anne Hidalgo tweeted that she had to right to prosecute organisers of the Nyansapo Festival for discrimination.

The event, due to be held in July, would see around 80 per cent of the venue reserved for black women.

One area will be for black people of any gender with another section open to all.

Organisers said they had been the target of a campaign of “misinformation and fake news orchestrated by the extreme right”.

But some French anti-racism groups have also spoken out against the event.

SOS Racisme branded it an “a mistake, even an abomination, because it wallows in ethnic separation, whereas anti-racism is a movement which seeks to go beyond race.”

And the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism claimed civil rights icon Rosa Parks “would be turning in her grave”.

Festival organisers said in a statement: “We are saddened to see some anti-racist associations let themselves be manipulated.

“They find themselves paradoxically on the side of racists to stigmatise those who pragmatically argue for the values ​​of equality and respect.”