Ten years ago, “marriage for all” was definitively adopted by the National Assembly. In Montpellier, Vincent and Bruno were the first to officially say “yes” to the town hall. “A moment of history”, says Vincent.
On May 29, 2013 in Montpellier, Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau were the first to say “yes”, a month after the final adoption of “marriage for all” in the National Assembly. “It is an honor for me to say that you are united in marriage in the name of the law”, concluded the then socialist mayor, Hélène Mandroux.
No less than 500 people attended the wedding in the ceremony hall, but thousands of others waited outside, on the forecourt of the town hall. “From the room with Bruno, we heard them chanting, applauding, shouting, says Vincent. It ‘fucked the hairs’ as they say. It was absolutely incredible, a moment of crazy emotion.”
“It was a moment in history that went well beyond my union with Bruno. You have to remember that at our wedding, there were 300 journalists from all over the world!”
Vincent, France’s first married homosexualat franceinfo
Vincent and Bruno are aware of entering into history, almost by chance. The town hall of Montpellier had made sure to be ready, by modifying the computer program of the Civil Registry allowing to register two men there. “We had no desire to be the first, just to get married, it’s not so different from other couples”, modestly confides Vincent, who evokes the serenity and recognition that marriage has brought them. “Our love is respected as such, protected. When we get married, we give you a family booklet. Whether you have children or not, at that time, you are considered a family in the eyes of the Republic.”
Equality for marriage and divorce
Vincent now lives in Switzerland and if he speaks without Bruno, it is because the two men have separated, after 12 years of living together, and seven years of marriage. “An epiphenomenon”he sweeps. “When we fight for equal rights, especially that of being able to marry, we also fight for the equality of being able to divorce. This is our case and it is very common to many couples.” Today, he does not see how society could go back. “The fact that marriage for all has existed for ten years is a celebration beyond our couples, obviously, beyond equality. For all future generations, it’s in the background, it makes sense and it’s normal”, he rejoices.
Vincent, however, remains struck by the violence of the opposition at the time. “These are people who demonstrated against obtaining a right that changed nothing in their lives, but that changed everything in ours. From this point of view, there is a real irresponsibility. And what about of the manipulation of the children that we saw at the head of the procession to repeat the words dictated by their entourage and their parents!.
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Vincent thinks “Nevertheless” having helped to change the minds of some of these opponents. “We received messages from people who had demonstrated and who, after seeing our wedding on television, sent us kind words by writing: ‘I’m sorry'”.
“If I had to do it again, I would change sides because I still forgot one thing, and that’s the most important thing: love.”
Excerpt from a letter received by Vincent and Brunofranceinfo
Since this first gay union, 70,000 other homosexual couples have gone before the mayor, an average of 7,000 same-sex marriages are celebrated each year. The figure is rather stable even if it had exceeded 10,000 unions in 2014 and then dropped, like everything else in 2020, the year of Covid. What is notable is that at the beginning, this “marriage for all” was more masculine than feminine. And today, it’s the opposite. For four years, marriages between women have outnumbered marriages between men. This is partly explained by the law on PMA (medically assisted procreation) open to lesbian couples because marriage simplifies part of the process.
Pacs is still popular
What is also striking is that gay or lesbian marriage has absolutely not slowed down the progress of Pacs, which has been open since 1999 to same-sex couples. Their number is even increasing. More frequent than marriage, 10,000 homosexual Pacs were concluded last year.
In terms of filiation, “marriage for all” was decisive at the beginning, in the sense that marriage was the obligatory passage to then embark on the process of adopting. But that is no longer the case today. “The marital condition fell with the Limon law 2022explains Fabien Joly, lawyer and spokesperson for the association of homoparental families, and therefore there is no longer any need to be married in order to be able to adopt the child of one’s partner or obtain approval and request the adoption of a ward in France or abroad”. If the law has therefore evolved further, in reality, very few of these same-sex couples have succeeded in adopting, admits the lawyer. Only a few dozen have succeeded in the past ten years, throughout France.