"I have been divorced. How can I be a Catholic extremist? I have never voted for the far right. I am passionately opposed to violence of any kind," she said.
"Printemps Francais is more a state of mind than a movement. We urge transgressive, but non-violent, resistance. That is to say that we intend to defy a state which has imposed a law which will distort and corrupt the true foundations of human society and civilisation.
"When we speak of 'targets,' we are not advocating violence or terrorism. We are talking of passive resistance, like Gandhi. We will, for instance, make the lives of ministers a misery whenever they travel or appear in public."
Ms Bourges, wearing jeans, a grey jumper, a white t-shirt and a short black raincoat, could be a "maman" waiting outside a school in one of the well-heeled western arrondissements of Paris. Or she could be a self-employed businesswoman.
She is both. She is a business consultant and long-time campaigner on family and Catholic issues and a divorced and re-married mother of two. Friendly and soft-spoken, she expounds an elaborate conspiracy theory. "Human values" are threatened by a "programme", driven by a broad coalition of leftists, feminists, gay lobbyists, freemasons and international capitalists. The gay marriage law is a by-product of "gender theory", imported from the United States, which seeks to eradicate "maleness" and "femaleness" and make us all socially gender-free, liberal-libertarian, rootless, amoral, global consumers.
She does not appear especially dangerous, though the Interior minister, Mr Valls, is not the only person to insist that she is.
Beatrice Bourges used to be one of the four spokespeople for the broad, popular movement against same-sex marriage, "Le Manif pour Tous". She was kicked out in March after encouraging a section of militant protesters to break away from an official march and defy a ban on demonstrations on the Champs Elysees.
Frigide Barjot, the satirist-turned-activist who has become the best known face of "Manif pour Tous", accuses Printemps Francais of being "aggressive".
She suggests that they are responsible, directly or indirectly, for the scores of threats that she has received since she allegedly adopted too soft an approach after same-sex marriage became legal last month. Beatrice Bourges has publicly criticised her former colleague, Ms Barjot, as "trop bisounours", which means "too much like a Care Bear". However, she rejects any link to the death threats Ms Barjot has received.
The French media, briefed by the Government, says Printemps Francais is a loose constellation of extreme right-wing Catholic, nationalist and royalist groups, including apologists for the collaborationist Vichy wartime government. Ms Bourges says that is all nonsense. Some far-right groups, she says, like to claim an association with Printemps Francais because it gives them "respectability".
Who, then, are Printemps Francais? Who is the leader? How is it funded? Ms Bourges becomes uncharacteristically vague.
She registered the internet domain name for Printemps Francais but she is the "spokeswoman, not the leader". The movement emerged from the "desire of various people in the provinces" to take a tougher, more confrontational line than Ms Barjot and "Manif pour Tous". It is not, and will not become, a political movement, she says. It is not an embryo French "Tea Party".
"The reason Manuel Valls and the rest of the Government tell these lies about us is that we scare them," says Ms Bourges. "They hoped that the protests would subside but they now fear we are going to carry on pointing out how dangerous for humanity, and especially for children, this law is."
Ms Bourges says she is not homophobic. "Homosexuals are just people who are trying to make sense of what they are, just like the rest of us," she says. "I can understand why they should want to get married. But this law, as it has been framed in France, goes far beyond that. It gives the right to homosexual couples to adopt, which will fundamentally change the conception of family and destroy children's sense of where they come from..."
"When a heterosexual couple adopts, they are fulfilling, or replicating, the roles of the biological parents," Ms Bourges responds. "If a homosexual couple adopts, they are denying the natural origins of humanity. They are saying that children do not come from a relationship between a man and a woman. They are a possession, an accoutrement, something that you can choose to acquire like a car or a necklace."
This is not an accidental by-product of the law, she insists. The law is the byproduct of an "international programme", to impose the "theory of gender", which holds that there are no fundamental differences between men and women and that our "gender roles" are imposed by society. "By allowing homosexual couples to adopt, the law is deliberately denying the importance of maleness and femaleness as the fundamental building blocks of humanity...," she says.
How many of the 400,000 or so people who took part in the last march (the organisers claimed 1,000,000) believe such abstract and abstruse arguments? Was not this not just a sophisticated way of avoiding having to say: "We have a gut aversion to homosexuality and, therefore, to homosexual marriage?"
"No, not at all," says Ms Bourges. "These are not abstract arguments. You may have a different view. But you have asked me to come here to explain my view and I believe that this law is part of a catastrophic programme to impose gender theory."
This is, in turn, she argues just part of a global, libertarian-liberal drive to replace "true" human values with the values of selfishness and "reduce mankind to a rootless, globalised consumer-producer".
Ms Bourges insists that she is democrat. But, she says, if politicians legislate against "natural justice", citizens have a right to obey their "conscience" and reject their laws. Printemps Francais, she says, is planning a series of "peaceful guerrilla actions" which will make the French Government regret that it ever considered gay marriage.
- Independent
