Same-sex Marriage In France

Same-sex marriage in France has been legal since 18 May 2013, making France the thirteenth country worldwide to allow same-sex couples to marry. The legislation applies to metropolitan France as well as to all French overseas departments and territories.

A bill granting same-sex couples the right to marry and jointly adopt children was introduced to the National Assembly by the Socialist Government of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on 7 November 2012, with the support of President François Hollande who declared his intent to support the legislation during his campaign for the presidency. On 12 February 2013, the National Assembly approved the bill in a 329–229 vote. On 12 April 2013, the Senate approved the bill with amendments in a 171–165 vote, followed by the approval of the amended bill by the National Assembly on 23 April 2013 in a 331–225 vote. However, a challenge to the law by the conservative Union for a Popular Movement party was filed with the Constitutional Council following the vote. On 17 May 2013, the Council ruled that the law was constitutional. That same day, President Hollande promulgated the bill, which was officially published the next day in the ''Journal Officiel de la République Française''. The first official same-sex marriage ceremony took place on 29 May 2013 in the city of Montpellier.

History

Despite the creation and implementation in 1999 of the civil solidarity pact (french: pacte civil de solidarité, ),,
* Alsatian: ,
* br, emglev keodedel a gengred,
* co, pattu civili di sulidarità,
* ca, pacte civil de solidaritat,
* ty, fa'aaura'a autaea'era'a,
* eu, elkartasun itun zibila,
* Franco-Provençal: ,
more commonly known as PACS, a system allowing civil partnerships between two persons without regard to their gender and guaranteeing certain personal and civil rights to both "pacsés", there was considerable political and societal debate over same-sex marriage in France during the first decade of the 21st century.

2004 same-sex marriage

On 5 June 2004, former Green Party presidential candidate Noël Mamère, mayor of the Bordeaux suburb of Bègles, conducted a same-sex marriage ceremony for two men, Bertrand Charpentier and Stéphane Chapin. Mamère claimed that there was nothing in French law to prohibit such a ceremony, and that he would appeal any challenge to the European Court of Human Rights.

Minister of Justice Dominique Perben had stated that such unions would be legally void, and called for judicial intervention to halt the ceremony. On 27 July 2004, the Bordeaux Court of General Jurisdiction declared the marriage null and void. One legal argument defended by the public prosecutor, representing the national government, was that the French Civil Code contained several mentions of ''husband'' and ''wife'', thereby implying different genders. On 19 April 2005, the Appeals Court of Bordeaux upheld the ruling, and on 14 March 2007, the Court of Cassation turned down Charpentier and Chapin's appeal. On 9 June 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the decision to invalidate Charpentier and Chapin's marriage did not constitute an infringement of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Reaction

Shortly after the ceremony took place, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin instituted disciplinary procedures against Mayor Mamère, suspending him from his duties for one month. The local administrative court ruled that Mamère's suspension was legal and substantiated. Mamère said he would not appeal the ruling, having already unsuccessfully attempted to get an injunction from the court, then appealing the case to the Council of State; both had ruled that an injunction was not justified on grounds of urgency.

On 11 May 2004, Socialist Party leader François Hollande announced that he would ask his party to file a draft law making same-sex marriages unequivocally legal. Some other party leaders, such as former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, publicly disapproved of same-sex marriage. Hollande's partner, Ségolène Royal, said at the time that she harbored doubts about same-sex marriage, though now fully supports it.

2006 parliamentary report

A parliamentary "Report on the Family and the Rights of Children" was released on 25 January 2006. Although the committee recommended increasing some of the rights already granted by the PACS civil partnership, it recommended maintaining prohibitions against marriage, adoption, and access to medically assisted reproduction for same-sex couples, arguing that these three issues were inseparable and that allowing them would contravene a number of articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which France is a signatory (though many UN member nations did grant some or all of these rights to same-sex couples). Referring to the rights of children as a human rights issue, the report argued that children "now have rights, and to systematically give preference to adult aspirations over respect for these rights is not possible anymore." Because of these prohibitions, left-wing members of the committee rejected the report.

2011 Constitutional Council decision

LGBT organizations in France, believing that the prohibition of same-sex marriage was contrary to the Constitution of France, asked the Constitutional Council to examine the constitutionality of same-sex marriage and to review the articles of the Civil Code. On 28 January 2011, the Council decided that the illegality of same-sex marriages was not contrary to the Constitution, further stating that same-sex marriage legalization was a question for Parliament to decide.

2011 bill

On 14 June 2011, the National Assembly of France voted 293–222 against legalizing same-sex marriage. Deputies of the governing Union for a Popular Movement party mostly voted against the measure, while deputies of the Socialist Party mostly voted in favour. Members of the Socialist Party said that the legalization of same-sex marriage would become a priority should they gain a majority in the 2012 legislative election.

Cabestany's 2011 same-sex marriage

On 12 November 2011, Mayor Jean Vila of Cabestany performed a same-sex wedding ceremony for a couple named Patrick, 48, and Guillaume, 37. The marriage was not recorded in order to prevent a subsequent nullification, and Vila described it as a "militant act", saying that "there are times when it is necessary to act outside the law. Refusing same-sex marriage is to deny the reality of thousands of couples." The French Government's reaction was mixed: the Secretary of State for Family, Claude Greff, called the event a "provocation on the eve of the presidential election", while Minister of Solidarity and Social Cohesion Roselyne Bachelot said she supported same-sex marriage but that the ceremony was "not the best way to advance the cause".

2012–2013 bill

During his campaign for the 2012 presidential election, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande declared his support for same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, including them as one of his campaign's 60 government commitments. On 6 May 2012, Hollande won the election and promised to pass same-sex marriage legislation before the spring of 2013. On 17 June, Hollande's party won an absolute majority in the National Assembly, followed by an announcement by government spokesperson Najat Vallaud-Belkacem that a same-sex marriage bill would be adopted in spring 2013 at the latest. On 3 July, in his first speech in front of the newly elected assembly, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced that marriage and adoption for all couples would be a reality "in the first semester of 2013". The draft bill was submitted to the French Parliament on 7 November 2012.

On 2 February 2013, the National Assembly approved the first article of the same-sex marriage bill by 249 votes to 97; the debate took several days as opponents introduced more than 5,000 amendments to the bill in order to slow down its passage. On 12 February, the National Assembly approved the bill as a whole in a 329–229 vote and sent it to the Senate.

The Senate started debating the bill on 4 April 2013 and five days later approved its first article in a 179–157 vote. On 12 April, the Senate approved the bill with minor amendments in a 171–165 vote. The Senate version of the marriage bill was adopted by the National Assembly on 23 April 2013 in a 331–225 vote.

The opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party immediately filed a challenge against the law with the Constitutional Council. On 17 May 2013, the Council declared the law constitutional. The same day, President François Hollande promulgated the bill, which was officially published on 18 May 2013 in the ''Journal Officiel de la République Française''. The first official same-sex wedding ceremony took place on 29 May in the city of Montpellier between Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau. The ceremony was conducted by Mayor Hélène Mandroux.

The same-sex marriage law is commonly referred to in France as ''la loi Taubira'' ("the Taubira law") in reference to Justice Minister Christiane Taubira who introduced the bill to the French Assembly in November 2012 and was the bill's main sponsor. The law amended Article 143 (Book I, Title V, Chapter I) of the Napoleonic Code to state that "marriage is contracted by two persons of different or of the same sex."

In June 2013, the French Government issued a circulaire "relating to the consequences of illegally refusing to celebrate a marriage on the part of a civil registrar". The circulaire stipulates a punishment of 5 years' imprisonment and a fine of 75,000€ for any mayor or local official who refuses to perform a marriage for a same-sex couple on the sole basis of their sexual orientation. The official may also face discrimination charges under Article 432-7 of the Penal Code. 146 mayors unsuccessfully challenged the circulaire in French courts. In October 2018, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed an appeal in the case.

There has been little political movement to abrogate the same-sex marriage law despite some politicians, including 2017 presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, expressly calling for its repeal. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy said he favored repealing the law in 2014, but said in a 2016 interview that he had changed his mind, calling a repeal "unjust, cruel and legally impossible". In 2017, the party president of The Republicans (previously the UMP), Laurent Wauquiez, said he opposed repealing the law. In June 2019, the vice president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, said the matter was "settled". While running in the 2022 presidential election, Le Pen said she opposed repealing the law, tweeting on 15 April 2022, "I will not take rights away from French citizens. Marriage for all will remain if I am elected President of the French Republic".

Scope

There had been initial confusion over whether the act applied to nationals of Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Kosovo, Laos, Montenegro, Morocco, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia or Tunisia, as it breached bilateral agreements stipulating that the law of those countries applies rather than French law. The Court of Cassation ruled that it does in September 2015, finding the provisions excluding these countries discriminatory and contrary to French law.

Polynesian third gender people

In Wallis and Futuna and the Society Islands of French Polynesia, there exists third gender people who occupy traditional spiritual and social roles. They are known as '' māhū'' () in Tahitian. The ''māhū'' are assigned male at birth but express themselves as women. "Being outside of the traditional male-female divide", they are raised as girls from early childhood, carry out women's work in the home and the community, and historically often served as domestic servants of the nobility. The ''māhū'' are considered an integral part of Tahitian society. They have been known to Europeans since the 18th century, with William Bligh, the captain of HMS ''Bounty'', having noted the presence of "men with great marks of effeminacy". If they wish to marry and have children, they will marry women. The ''māhū'' status thus creates the possibility for marriages between two female-presenting individuals to be performed in Tahitian culture. In Wallisian culture, people who occupy a similar third gender role are known as (), and it is likely that "they have always existed" on Wallis. Assigned male at birth, they express themselves as women and carry out women's work in the community. They are also known as () in Futunan.

Marriage statistics

In 2013, following the introduction of same-sex marriage in France, approximately 7,000 same-sex couples were legally married in the country. They made up approximately 3% of all marriages in that time, with three out of every five same-sex marriages involving male couples. Approximately 10,500 same-sex marriages took place in France in 2014, representing 4% of all marriages performed that year. Male couples accounted for about 54% of these marriages, while lesbian couples accounted for the remaining 46%. Some 6,000 French communes performed at least one same-sex marriage. 1,331 same-sex couples married in the French capital of Paris, comprising 13.5% of the total number of weddings performed in the city.

From May 2013 to December 2016, approximately 32,640 same-sex marriages were performed in France.

By 23 April 2018, five years after the French Parliament had approved the same-sex marriage law, approximately 40,000 same-sex couples had married in the country. This represented about 3.5% of all marriages performed during that time. The departments with the highest share of same-sex marriages were Paris (9.7%), Calvados (5.6%), Charente-Maritime (5.4%), Hérault

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases