Gay mayor of Paris stabbed

A man has admitted stabbing openly gay mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe, telling police he hated homosexuals and politicians.

Delanoe, 52, was stabbed in the stomach at Paris’s city hall Nuit Blanche (sleepless night) festival on Sunday, with surgeons announcing that Delanoe will have to remain in hospital for the next eight days.

A letter released from the hospital this week said that Delanoe underwent surgery and was treated successfully for his stomach wounds.

Police named the attacker as Azedine Berkane, a 39-year-old computer worker with convictions for theft and acts of violence.

Delanoe’s communications director Anne Sylvie told Paris’s Liberation newspaper that the attack came out of nowhere. I though he was punching [Delanoe] in the stomach, but Bertrand Delanoe said, -˜He knifed me.’

An investigator close to the inquiry told the press that Berkane proclaimed to police that he did not like politicians, and in particular he did not like homosexuals.

Judicial officials also said that Berkane claimed homosexuality was against nature.

Judicial officials said Berkane was to be detained, placed under investigation, and will undergo psychiatric examinations.

Police labelled the attack an isolated, unpremeditated act and were treating it as a common crime.

Delanoe came out publicly as a gay men during a 1998 television interview. He was elected as mayor of Paris in March 2001.