On April 23, 2013, the law opening up marriage to persons of the same sex was adopted in Parliament. Franceinfo interviewed activists and experts who recount their memories of that time.
A major societal advance, but one that left a bitter taste. In 2013, Marie-Clémence Bordet-Nicaise was a 25-year-old lesbian woman. The co-founder of Collectif Famille.s, a group for the defense of LGBT rights, remembers thengos month of parliamentary debates for the opening of marriage to same-sex couples. “It’s a memory that’s both happy and painful,” she explains, torn.
The activist evokes a troubled period, particularly difficult to live. “JI felt dispossessed of my story, which was intimate and suddenly became political”. In the middle of January that year, La Manif pour tous, which waged a fierce campaign against the government project, managed to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in the streets to oppose the union of homosexual people.
Marie-Clémence Bordet-Nicaise even suffered frontal opposition within her entourage. “I have been forced to break with part of my family and with the Catholic Church. I stopped practicing my religion at that time”says the author of the book We don’t choose who we love (ed. Flammarion).
“A spread of hate”
After months of mobilization of opponents, fierce debates, the law for the opening of marriage to people of the same sex was finally adopted on April 23, 2013, and promulgated a few weeks later. “It is a right that has been acquired at the cost of a lot of violence”, recalls Rozenn Le Carboulec, who will publish a book on the subject on May 3, The Humiliated (Ecuador ed.).
The bill on marriage for all, promised in François Hollande’s electoral program in 2012 and carried a few months later by his Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, was not sufficiently defended by the executive, judges the journalist. She denounces the “lukewarmness” of the left then in power, “who has let La Manif pour tous express itself and let a homophobic climate settle in”.
“For LGBT people, this period is a very bad memory and a great source of trauma.”
Rozenn Le Carboulec, journalist and authorat franceinfo
Lucile Jomat, president of SOS homophobia, an association which notably holds a service dedicated to LGBT people, recalls for her part that there has been an explosion of calls to report homophobic remarks or acts during this period. In its 2013 annual report, theThe association noted that reports had increased by 78% over one year. Insults were noted in three out of four alerts, and physical violence was present in one out of seven.
The media widely relayed homophobic hatred at the time, giving an excessive place to anti-marriage for all, according to Lucile Jomat. “If one person makes LGBTphobic comments on television, others will feel more comfortable doing the same on a daily basis. This increases the spread of hatred,” she regrets.
“This law is no longer in question”
Despite the difficult times that have marked the legislative process, the interlocutors interviewed by franceinfo underline the importance of this law, which has enabled major societal change. “This law is no longer questioned, even by people who opposed it at the time. It is a right that is now widely accepted”, greet Rozenn The Carboulec.
Marriage for all also marks the end of a situation of glaring inequality, believes Lucile Jomat: “Before that, we were ‘sub-citizens’.advancement of rights has allowed the advancement of society”. And mentalities. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, for example made – like others on the right – his my culpaFriday, for opposing the text ten years ago, when he was a UMP deputy. “VSimportant to see that people evolve, notes the president of SOS homophobia. But we don’t forget what they said at the time.”
Since spring 2013, nearly 70,000 same-sex marriages have been celebrated in France. In 2022, INSEE identified 7,000 (data stopped in November), a rather stable figure for a decade, with the exception of the year 2020, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic.