2023-04-22 10:02:36
It’s a wedding in a small committee, in August 2020, four months after the start of deconfinement. In front of the town hall of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, about thirty people gather to attend the union of Chloé and Pauline. Two months after the birth of their daughter Esmée, born from a PMA, it is an important moment.
Marriage was, indeed, a necessity until the adoption reform in February 2022 so that the social parent or unmarried couples could adopt. “We had no choice on the timing, we got married faster because of the birth of Esme, explains Pauline, a civil servant, like his wife. We probably wouldn’t have gotten married under these conditions otherwise ”, while the date had been postponed twice since April. An additional source of stress at the birth of their daughter.
Between 6,000 and 11,000 marriages each year
Since 2013, between 6,000 and 11,000 marriages between people of the same gender have been celebrated each year in France, according to SOS Homophobia, i.e. between 3% and 5% of civil marriages. At the time, the Association of Mayors of France had pleaded for “respect for the conscience” of city officials, a moment envisaged by François Hollande, to the amazement of LGBT + associations.
Ten years after the opening of marriage and adoption to homosexual couples, on April 23, 2013, we asked the husbands and wives to tell us about the moment of the ceremony in town hall, often moving, but also embarrassing remarks which could be held by elected officials.
A picture still hanging in the office
Pauline and Chloé’s ceremony made the thirty guests cry. They were married by the trade assistant, Rym Karaoun-Gouezou, for whom it was the first gay marriage. “She told us in her introductory speech that it was very moving for her to be there since she had fought for the right to marry and that she was very happy that there was a little baby, because it symbolized the reality of our families. »
The communist deputy, who had just been elected in June 2020 and discovered the file 10 minutes before the wedding, says “to have been very, very touched” to take on this role, she who had participated with her husband in the demonstrations in support marriage for all, shocked by the hostility to the bill. She keeps, moreover, hanging in her office a photo of the ceremony, sent by Pauline and Chloé.
“A huge relief to have someone from our side”
For Malik and Benoît, also married at the town hall of the 13th arrondissement in June 2018 and awaiting adoption, the moment was particularly strong. “The person who married us was happy to unite two men, she had tears in her eyes, says Malik, who explains that he and her husband had not evaluated the emotional shock of the ceremony. When she recited the passage read to all the couples, I really cried at that moment, I realized what marriage was symbolically. »
Like Pauline, the history teacher shares his surprise and emotion at having been married by an ally “for one of the most significant and happiest events in [sa] life “. “Having someone from our camp was a huge relief,” recalls Pauline. Even if it’s a right we’ve won, you never know who it’s going to fall on. I had the chips for him to say nasty stuff, I wasn’t afraid it would be impersonal, that would have been cool already, I was afraid it would just suck. »
The moment of the “lapse”
Several couples recount the same moment of the “lapse”: “I pronounce you husband and wife”. Pacsés in 1999, David-Jean and Philippe got married as soon as possible, in August 2013, to “have the same rights as heterosexual couples” and be able to expand their family – they had two daughters born from surrogacy in the United States in 2017. “The ceremony went pretty well, except that the deputy mayor made a little slip of the tongue when talking about husband and wife, recounts David-Jean. It made everyone laugh. He thinks it happened out of habit, because she picked herself up right away.
The situation is a little different for Loïc, legal officer, and Bertrand, farmer, married in 2015, in a right-wing town hall, which had raised apprehensions. “I don’t know if it was out of habit or a joke in bad taste, he said something like: ‘Madam, Sir, I pronounce you husband and wife’, and then: ‘Oh no, that’s not it “. It was a bit heavy, reacts Loïc, especially since we were in front of him and he could see that we were two men. »
Illegal celebration refusals
Since 2013, several cases of mayors claiming to refuse to marry gay couples have been reported in the press. The reports against LGBTIphobia by SOS Homophobia also echo the discrimination practiced by agents or elected officials of communities (refusal of the mayor or deputies to marry, MPT label for marriage for all registered in the marriage register, poor reception in city hall).
The last report indicates having received the testimony of a couple of women whose marriage was blocked by a town hall in Morbihan: the deputies and the mayor refused to celebrate the ceremony, “still asking for more proof as to the veracity of their relationship and pretexting a suspicion of a sham marriage”. An illegal opposition, because discriminatory: the couples concerned have the right to ask the judge to oblige the mayor to celebrate the ceremony.
« Un coming out social »
For the wedding of Dorothée and Claire in May 2014, an update of the texts was also necessary. “It was the first homosexual marriage at the town hall of Trouville-sur-Mer: “The husband agrees to have the wife”, it is always declined in masculine and feminine and the cultural assistant resumed at the end of each sentence, saying: “Pardon, pardon, the wife and the wife”, smiles Dorothée. We felt that she wanted to do well, that it was new and that she was walking on eggshells. She remembers the palpable concentration and emotion in the town hall.
For the one who was the official director of the Elysée at the time of the adoption of the law and “remained in the closet”, her marriage was “a social coming out”. “I had the impression that it made it official, even for me, analyzes Dorothée, who wrote the comic strip From the inside – Two women, a quinquennium, a baby (Ed. Delcourt) where she recounts her experience. It allowed me to assert myself vis-à-vis others and to fully experience this relationship. In a certain sense, I was legitimized in the eyes of society, especially in a rather hostile context. »
She now explains that she is proud to say “my wife”, to have been able to start a family with two boys born from an LDC. The road traveled in ten years makes her rather optimistic. Although other social advances, especially on the rights of trans people, remain to be won.
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