It came to my mind recently that I’ve seen about a year ago a report on old French punk bands, and I was quite surprised to hear that a band that I liked a lot, Les Porte-Mentaux, was indeed one made up of homosexuals.
Now it might seem not that extraordinary, but it’s important to clarify that their career did last more or less from 82 to 89 in France, a country divided at the time between the controlling bourgeoisie and an alternative youth that struggled against an imposed repression on immigrants, political refugees, and the ones that deviated from the good old aristocratic French agenda.
It is maybe the reason why Les Porte-Mentaux did not fall under the queercore label nor did they clearly expressed their homosexuality at the time; they were most like other French punk bands and decided to attack the social stigmas as a whole, probably not to be regarded as the exclusive defenders of homosexuality alone. They didn’t have any focus; they wanted to demonstrate the unity of a youth that’s been tired of the racist and elitist model the generation that preceded them tried to establish.
Now I’m far from the French culture of the time. Hell, I wasn’t even born when they started their career. One thing remains, however: even though this band will probably not make history, they will remain as one of the building blocks of today’s revolutionary youth, a youth that’s pissed at the way their folks drove their country towards one that values the judgement and the rejection of difference.
As a bit of history, other non-gay bands that marked France’s alternative culture are Bérurier Noir (probably one of its pioneers), Ludwig Von 88, and Indochine, which is still a band today.
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