Lou Queernaval MC Erwann Le Hô: ‘If you are too dependent on the state, it can all disappear’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Ten years ago, I was on the French Riviera for the first Lou Queernaval, an evening LGBTQ+ parade that is now part of Nice Carnival’s two-week celebration every February. Nice has been making merry at its carnival for more than 150 years. The celebration is one of the biggest of its kind in the world, attracting around 400,000 people each year.

On that day in 2015, more than 10,000 people of all ages — from kids on their parents’ shoulders to hardcore partygoers in multicoloured foil wigs — gathered to hear the greeting by Lou Queernaval host and press officer Erwann Le Hô – one of the winners at this year’s PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe, supported by British Airways.

He was dressed in a dinner jacket with a sparkling blue waistcoat to match his fingernails, and with his face powdered white, his lips red and his hair slicked back, he looked like a gender-swapped version of The Hunger Games’s Effie Trinket. 

A decade later, I find myself in Le Hô’s living room to speak with him about his outstanding work for Nice’s LGBTQ+ community.

He tells me that he grew up in Brittany and moved to Nice in 2013 to be with his husband, whom he married last year. Then, we discuss the carnival. Although Le Hô remembers watching television programmes and news reports on the famous Nice Carnival every year, he only experienced it in person for the first time in 2014.

Despite being new in town, the following year he joined a team to create Lou Queernaval.

“One of my friends wanted to organise a gay event during the winter, so they worked together and created the first Lou Queernaval” – Erwann Le Hô

“I was working as press officer for the mayor of Nice, and he decided to refresh this local tradition, and one of my friends wanted to organise a gay event during the winter, so they worked together and created the first Lou Queernaval,” Le Hô explains. “So, I said to myself, ‘I am going to be a part of it.’”

When no one else was willing to take the role of master of ceremonies for the event, Le Hô stepped up despite never doing anything quite like it before.

“On the night, there were about 10,000 people in Place Masséna, the biggest square in the city, and they were all waiting for me to speak. It was a very big pressure. I usually don’t drink, but I decided to have one glass of Champagne to feel able to begin to speak. And once I did, it was an amazing feeling,” Le Hô  remembers.

Having witnessed his star turn myself 10 years ago, I can confirm he smashed it. And he has continued to be the MC at every Lou Queernaval since.

“Lots of people said… ‘Lou Queernaval reminds me of the carnival of my childhood’” – Erwann Le Hô

Once Le Hô calls for the parade to begin, 200 to 300 dancers, drag artists and LGBTQ+ groups march and dance through Place Masséna in elaborate costumes — or sometimes very little — before the night descends into an all-out party.

“The first year, the local extreme rights group tried to protest against the event. But [their protest] was so little that they didn’t have any success,” Le Hô reveals before telling me how the audience reacted to Lou Queernaval. “Lots of people said, ‘When I was younger, the carnival was better because there was less security; we could dance in the street with the parade. Now it’s more for the tourists, [and] you have to pay to be seated. But Lou Queernaval reminds me of the carnival of my childhood.’”

After seven years of working for the mayor, Le Hô is now the director of the Centre LGBTQIA+ Côte d’Azur in Nice. Three years ago, the centre created France’s first dedicated LGBTQ+ health clinic, which now offers gender-affirming hormone therapy — a first in France.

“If we disappear, who will help LGBTQ+ people who need us the most?” – Erwann Le Hô

In 2023, it launched the annual Nice Rainbow Festival for May’s International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. And last year, it created a shelter for young LGBTQ+ people living on the streets.

“Now my goal is to make us more financially secure. Like the rest of Europe, we don’t know what is coming,” says Le Hô. “In the next year or two, we could see the far right arrive at the Town Hall, or be successful at the presidential election, so it is very important to find new ways to raise money, because if you are too dependent on the state, it can all disappear. And if we disappear, who will help LGBTQ+ people who need us the most?”