Since 2019, at least 100 municipalities across Poland have signed declarations saying they are free of “LGBT ideology”. Although they appear not to have been followed by legislation to discriminate against gay residents, they have fuelled concern in Brussels and beyond of a drift in Poland towards illiberalism. “Polish authorities recently told me they were not able to schedule this visit, and that’s profoundly regrettable,” Beaune told L’Obs magazine in an interview. A spokeswoman for Beaune told Reuters the French minister planned to visit the town of Krasnik in the east, one of the 100 municipalities which signed the declaration, but that Polish authorities had indicated “it would be badly received to go to Krasnik considering the health situation.” However, the Polish government denied the French minister, a close ally of President Emmanuel Macron, had been denied access. “This is of course not true. No one in the Polish government forbade or made it impossible for the French deputy minister to visit Krasnik,” Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk tweeted on Tuesday.