PARIS, FRANCE – On April 22, French voters cast their ballots to decide who among 10 candidates will be the next President of France.

When Sunday’s results were tallied, two candidates—Socialist François Hollande, the challenger, and the incumbent president, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy—had garnered enough votes to advance to a second round. Although Hollande beat Sarkozy in the vote count, under France’s constitution the two candidates must face each other in a run-off.

The fight for LGBT rights in France has taken a different path than the one fought in the U.S., including subtle homophobia communicated from several of the far-right presidential candidates, according to European LGBT advocacy groups. In its 2011 annual report, the French organization Sos Homophobie reported that the amount of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity has increased over the last few years. Last year, there was an 18 percent increase in the number of reported cases of anti-gay discrimination in France, and the number of hate-related assaults in public places increased 43 percent between 2009 and 2010.

In the run-up to this year’s French presidential contest, Sos Homophobie submitted a list of questions to the candidates concerning equal rights and the fight against discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Another question concerned the laws dealing with blood donations.

As in the U.S., French blood banks may not accept blood from self-identified MSMs (a clinical term meaning “men who have sex with men”), in order to help contain the risk of HIV contamination.

President Nicolas Sarkozy, the incumbent who came in second in Sunday’s balloting, said he supports allowing MSMs to donate blood only if they have not had sex in the past twelve months. The Green Party candidate, Eva Joly, and the anti-capitalist candidate, Philippe Poutou, both support a relaxation of the moratorium based upon individual medical histories.