Experience: I used to think that homophobia and hatred towards gay people didn’t exist in Europe, until I faced this experience in France

So I was in France, and a group of white French people treated my boyfriend and me in a very, very, very bad way, calling us feminine, “not masculine enough,” and using slurs like “dirty fa**ots,” while laughing loudly and making monkey noises or something similar. My boyfriend has this naturally masculine, macho energy; he wanted to confront them, but I held him back and pulled him away from the situation, so things don't escalate. Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t believe my ears. I never thought in my life that I would face this kind of hate in Europe, especially in France. Yeah, maybe I was naïve to think France is completely safe and gay-friendly, but still… this was shocking.