It is the last great societal advance in France, and it is ten years old. The law on marriage for all, opening civil marriage to lesbian and gay couples, celebrates on April 23 the “tin wedding” of its final adoption by Parliament. The road has been long and particularly difficult. Moreover, we remember almost more the violent and important demonstrations of opposition in pink and blue to the project than the substance of the file: the adoption of a new right for millions of people who were deprived of it. Since then, it’s been a desert, if we except the opening of PMA to couples of cisgender women and single women, which does not really solve the problem, or very small advances on the rights of trans people.
So, ten years later, isn’t the French political class still suffering from a “trauma”? A “trauma” that would push the various governments to put so-called “societal” subjects under the carpet. Current example: despite the conclusions of the citizens’ convention on the end of life, in favor of assisted suicide and euthanasia under conditions, the government already seems to be putting the brakes on. The measure is however very popular in the opinion, and for decades in a stable way, according to the polls.
Presidential “fear”
The PMA itself was a promise of François Hollande in 2012 and was sent back indefinitely under pressure from the street. “It was a big mistake to leave the PMA on the way,” said today the deputy Renaissance (RE) of Charente-Maritime, Raphaël Gérard. Even if it means putting all the reactions in the street, you might as well do it once and for all. The macronist was not elected in 2013, not really an activist either, quite the opposite of Patrick Bloche, former PS deputy from Paris, in charge at the time and already fifteen years before on the Pacs, who shares the same analysis: “Maintaining the PMA would not have increased the pressure. Besides, removing it didn’t lower it either. »
Six years later, Emmanuel Macron will take a long time to keep his own promise on PMA. “There was a real fear in the President of the Republic to relive 2013, says Raphaël Gérard. The fact is that it permanently traumatized the political class because no one expected a resistance of this magnitude. The Demonstration for all and these circles have shown a capacity for organization. It’s almost militias parading in the offices of deputies, including mine during the debates on the Bioethics law. “We let ourselves be influenced too much by lobbies that have financial and nuisance power, believes Ségolène Amiot, LFI deputy for Nantes. They have a long arm”
Political will
But the one who was in 2013 vice-presidents of the local LGBT center sees first and foremost in the slowness of these advances a lack of political will. The Demonstration for all and its avatars then appearing more like a pretext. “The difficulty is the lack of political courage, stings the Nantes woman. The question is no longer ”is it good for the general interest” but ”will I be re-elected because it is not consensual”. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t get re-elected! “An opinion generally shared by Patrick Bloche who, like Raphaël Gérard, even relativizes the scope of the 2013 demonstrations:” Put together, when you look at the numbers mobilized, it is quite modest compared to pensions, for example. »
The way Emmanuel Macron handled the PMA file also questions his enthusiasm: Raphaël Gérard and Laurence Vanceunebrock, MP beaten in 2022, took a long time to obtain an entry on the agenda. Once tabled, the Bioethics bill had two particularities: it is one of the rare government texts not to have benefited from the accelerated procedure (which reduces the shuttle to one reading in each room), which has become the norm Today. And then, it is the only government text of the previous mandate for which the macronists had freedom to vote.
old lanterns
Pacôme Rupin, Macronist deputy from 2017 to 2022, recalls that ultimately very few members of the majority did not vote for the text. “There was a desire to go to the end of the debate, relativizes the former elected Parisian. The executive wanted a somewhat transpartisan text, to find consensus across the groups. And that’s what happened: it was one of the best debates in the legislature. “He continues:” I believe that these are subjects where there is always a part of the political class which slows down. Marriage for all was not obvious for the socialists in the early 2000s.
This is in line with the thesis of the political scientist at the University of Paris-1 Frédérique Matonti, for whom political reluctance on social issues dates back to well before 2013: “The last major law is undoubtedly the abolition of the penalty of death, in 1981. Shortly before there was the legalization of abortion. But afterwards, alongside a right generally against these developments, the left will be very timid. » The author of How did we become reacs? (Fayard) saw a changeover at the end of the 1980s, thanks to numerous controversies over the school. “In 1984, the left tried to create with the Savary law a unified and secular school system, but the very important demonstrations in defense of ”free school” forced it to back down. Already at the time, Catholic circles were on the move. In 1989, the “Creil affair” was the first controversy over the veil at school, when a college principal excluded two students wearing a headscarf.
“We have already given you a lot”
When it’s not from the outside, it’s from the inside that the difficulties can come. Raphaël Gérard felt it in his group, especially from the moment he became de facto the specialist in LGBT issues in his group. “At one point we are no longer even listened to and we are made remarks like ‘enough, we have already given you a lot’. No, we just managed to conquer rights that were not granted to us. “The subjects of society are seen as very secondary, even despised. “It’s true that on the left for a long time, especially in the PS, economic and social questions were the main questions, remembers Patrick Bloche. We said to ourselves that we would deal with social issues when we had time…”
Even if the treatment reserved for sexist and sexual and political violence in recent months makes it doubtful, the elected representatives of the left questioned think that this is less the case today. However, those who raise the issue of rights are forced to ask how to take the debate to move forward. Marie-Charlotte Garin, EELV MP, asks herself, for example, the question of the rights of trans people, seen as the next step: “We also have to ask ourselves how we do not give a media boulevard to the antis, who are in the minority but extreme. How do we advance our pawns without weakening the people concerned? This is perhaps the lesson of the 2013 debate, which was very violent. With in the corner of the head how the debate in the United Kingdom has turned to the transphobic festival, and even to the rollback of certain rights.