the National Assembly adopts a rehabilitation law at first reading

The deputies notably reestablished the principle of financial reparation for people convicted of homosexuality, a measure which had been removed by the senators.

After the Senate, the Assembly unanimously approved at first reading, Wednesday March 6, a bill aimed at recognizing and repairing the harm suffered by homosexual people due to the discriminatory laws in force from 1942 to 1982.

The Assembly reestablished the principle of financial reparation for people convicted of homosexuality and the creation of a commission responsible for ruling on requests for financial reparation, measures removed by the Senate.

The text, initially carried by Senator Hussein Bourgi (PS), was the subject of a very broad consensus, the 331 deputies present having voted in favor, even if certain groups expressed reservations on the principle of financial reparation . “We do not wish, like others, to distort [la loi] by issues which appear mercantile, which the interested parties do not demand and which would tend to reduce our text to a simple creation of allowances”explained in particular the RN deputy Sébastien Chenu.

Eric Dupond-Moretti asks for forgiveness

In his introductory remarks, Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti asked for forgiveness from people who are victims of discrimination because of their homosexuality. “It is high time to (…) say this evening in the name of the French Republic: forgiveness, forgiveness to the people, to the homosexuals of France who have suffered for 40 years, this totally iniquitous repression. Our Republic has never been so beautiful only when it knows how to recognize that it has lost the thread of its founding principles, freedom, equality, fraternity”he stressed.

The rapporteur of the text, the PS deputy Hervé Saulignac, considered that recognition could not go without reparation. “I think France is capable of doing what Germany did, what the United Kingdom did, what Ireland did, what Spain did, what Canada did”, he argued, estimating that the number of people benefiting from reparation could be between 200, as in Spain, and 400, as in Germany. The text must now resume its legislative journey in the Senate.