French Same Sex Marriage Case

Leading French News Broadcaster, France 24 is reporting on the lesbian couple standing up for the right to marry.


They say the French government is currently being forced to reassess its current ban on same-sex marriage as a lesbian couple’s ten-year legal battle continues.    Corrine Cestino and Sophie Hasslauer, case will finally be ruled on this Friday, by the country’s Constitutional Council.


The French prides themselves on its record on human rights, its record and its national motto of “Liberty, equality, and fraternity” is held dear.    However, for a country famed for its ‘laissez-faire’ attitude towards love and sex, there is a puzzling contradiction: gay couples do not have the right to marry. Corrine Cestino and Sophie Hasslauer have been in a relationship for almost 14 years and have four children. Furthermore, the couple already have a legally recognised civil partnership, which is known as the “pacs” in France. For the couple in question though, it is not marriage.

They have now taken their cause to France’s highest constitutional body, reports France24 The Constitutional Council is set to decide Friday whether to repeal a law which bans same-sex marriage. The change would grant gay couples the same marriage rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

The review comes after France’s highest court of appeal – the Court of Cassation – launched an investigation into the law in November of last year. It was sparked after the couple from the north-eastern city of Reims demanded an enquiry into the legality of certain “civil code” articles inscribed in law, which prohibit the pair from marrying.

The ‘pacs’ contract was introduced in 1999 to appease gay rights campaigners, but legally, it pales in comparison with marriage. “Marriage is the only solution in terms of protecting our children, sharing parental authority, settling inheritance problems and eventual custody if one of us were to die,” the couple told AFP.

A study carried out by the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) estimated in 2009 that some 24,000 to 40,000 French children live with gay parents. However, the figures are difficult to verify due to the fact that only one parent will be legally recognized as such in France, as a result many couples shy away from declaring their status.

France lagging behind other EU countries

There are already nine European Union members who, to differing degrees, allow same-sex couples to marry: Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. In the UK, civil unions afford the same rights as marriage but the government has stopped short of calling it ‘marriage’.

Gay rights campaigners complain that France, which prides itself on a strong human rights record, is failing its national motto of “Liberty, equality, and fraternity”. Furthermore, for a country famed for its ‘laissez-faire’ attitude to love and sex, the paradox is puzzling.

“There’s absolutely no reason why we should continually be denied the right,” argues gay rights activist Laura Petersell from the gar-rights group Act Up Paris campaign. “It’s not a favour, a present, a privilege – it’s a fundamental and universal right,” she told FRANCE 24.

The lawyer of Cestino and Hasslauer made this very point in May last year; Emmanuel Ludot described the ban as “limiting the personal freedom of French citizens”.