Uproar on French left as Hollande stalls family law

Politicians on the French left have reacted angrily to the Hollande administration’s decision to postpone a draft law on the family, in the wake of mass demonstrations against socialists’ alleged “familiphobia”.

The government had promised to present the law in early April. But the prime minister’s office announced on Monday it will not be considered before 2015. The government claimed the text would not be ready in time, and the national assembly’s schedule is too busy.

But the move was seen by all as an umpteenth climbdown by President François Hollande. “If the government is terrified of a few tens of thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets, they can’t govern anymore,” said socialist senator Jean-Pierre Michel, who was the rapporteur for last year’s law on same-sex marriage.

At their group meeting yesterday, angry socialist members of the national assembly vowed to circumvent the government they are supposed to support by proposing draft laws on aspects of the postponed text. Anne Hidalgo, the socialist candidate for mayor of Paris and a Hollande stalwart, said she was “extremely disappointed” by the decision.

“By backing down, the government gives the impression that it’s ashamed of the law, which is a good law,” the co-president of ecologist parliamentary group EELV Barbara Pompili said.

Ludovine de la Rochère, the president of the conservative “Manif pour tous” group held a press conference to declare “a first victory for children and for families”. The “Manif” issued a communique demanding other concessions, including a commitment by the government to “respect the right of a child to have a father and a mother”.

Running from issue
Mr Hollande promised to legalise medically assisted procreation for lesbian couples during his presidential campaign, but has been running from it since. At the end of 2012, 126 socialist deputies voted to include medically assisted procreation in the law on same-sex marriage.

But as opposition to that law grew, the government promised it would be part of a subsequent family law. It later asked family minister Dominique Bertinotti to leave medically assisted procreation out of the law.

Right-wing and religious groups accused the government of sneaking medically assisted procreation and surrogacy into family legislation. Allowing homosexual couples to hire surrogate mothers has proven more controversial than artificial insemination for lesbians.

On Monday, interior minister Manuel Valls angered many of his socialist colleagues by promising that neither medically assisted procreation nor surrogacy would figure in the family law. Then, the prime minister's office announced there would be no law this year.

Proponents argue it would have simplified life for reconstituted families by giving legal status to step-parents, regardless of gender.

It would have facilitated the adoption of children placed in foster homes, and allowed adopted children and those conceived through medically assisted procreation to get information on their origins.