On the morning of Oct. 18, 2014, the City of Paris formally unveiled a historical plaque in memory of Jean Diot and Bruno Lenoir, arrested for sodomy and burned at the stake in 1750 — the last two victims of an execution for homosexual acts in the history of France.





The plaque is located in the pavement at the corner of the rue Montorgueil and the rue Bachaumont, near the location where the men were seized in flagrante on Jan. 4, 1750.





Among the speakers at the ceremony: Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris (the first woman and the second Socialist to hold the post) and Jacques Boutault, district mayor for the second arrondissement, where the plaque is located.





Mayor Hidalgo's speech was both very moving in its evocation of the long struggle for respect and equality for LGBT people and in making a strong commitment to public policy measures supporting LGBT public history.





Notably, the mayor said that she wanted to see Paris establish an institution for documenting and making LGBT history available to all residents of the city — and she specifically cited San Francisco as a model to follow in this regard.





: Gerard Koskovich, Historian, LGBT activist, October 18, 2014