FRANCE: Anti-gay marriage protesters in Paris appeal to French politicans to ditch party lines

Record ID: 277783

  • Title: FRANCE: Anti-gay marriage protesters in Paris appeal to French politicans to ditch party lines
  • Date: 2nd February 2013
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 2, 2013) (REUTERS) PROTESTERS WAVING FLAGS FLAG READING (French): "THE PROTEST FOR EVERYONE" MAN IN CROWD
  • Embargoed: 17th February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAL7IC8JN11UXXNNAGWBBZAMDG
  • Story Text: Anti-gay marriage campaigners assembled in Paris on Saturday (February 2) to call on the government to allow parliamentarians a free vote on the issue.
    Led by activist Frigide Barjot, protesters rallied near the French National Assembly with signs demanding: "Freedom of conscience for members of parliament".
    This cry was echoed by people in the crowd, including finance worker Jean Lacroisade.
    "The aim of this gathering you see around you today is to call on our MPs, to ask them to wake up and exercise their consciences, not just to blindly obey party politics, whatever they might be. To listen to their consciences and to see that the forthcoming bill goes against all principles of civilisation as it is constructed," he told Reuters.
    Protester Christine Rosset argued that French civil unions should be improved, but that marriage was specifically for heterosexual couples.
    Despite the passion of the protesters outside the Assembly, the French parliament on Saturday adopted the main clause of a reform bill that would allow same-sex marriage and grant gay couples the right to adopt children.
    Deputies voted 249-97 to back the clause eliminating opposite gender as a condition of the right to marriage.
    The draft law, the first major social reform of Francois Hollande's presidency, has been a subject of controversy and protest in the country in the past weeks.
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