For weeks the issue has divided the ruling Socialist Party. Finally on Wednesday January 9th the question of whether lesbians wanting children should get access to medically-assisted procreation (MAP) - by in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination - was settled when prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault confirmed that the measure would be included in fresh legislation later this year.
In a clearly choreographed move, his announcement came hours after the Socialist Party (PS) group of Members of Parliament decided to abandon their amendment that would have integrated access to MAP in the current and controversial draft legislation enabling marriage and adoption for all, to be debated in the National Assembly from January 29th.
Until Wednesday, the government had agreed they would not oppose the socialist MPs' amendment on medically-assisted procreation, and most socialist politicians were expecting the measure to be included in the same-sex marriage legislation, which is facing strong opposition from some sections of society.
The reason for the sudden change of tactics is that a new government announcement upset the scheduled timetable. On Thursday January 3rd, while setting out the “government’s work programme” over the coming months – in which the main priority is employment – the prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault revealed plans for a new law on the family that would take account of “the diversity of family models”. He said the planned legislation would be presented to the council of ministers in March.
Even if “the scope has not been decided”, this new legislation could be an opportunity to bring together several measures linked to issues of parentage, according to the junior minister with responsibility for family matters Dominique Bertinotti. “Our civil code does not cater for the diversity of family models,” she told Mediapart. “We have to spruce it up, bring it up to date. The status of step-parents is very imperfect and doesn't meet certain demands from step families (1). Single people can adopt but not couples in a civil partnership [editor’s note, known as a PACS in French], which is absurd. We have to examine the conditions attached to adoption. Children abandoned at birth (2) or born as a result of medically-assisted procreation are increasingly asking to have access to their origins, and that's a issue that deserves to be raised. The law will allow the gaps to be filled in.”
The prime minister has now told socialist MPs that access to medically-assisted procreation for all would also be included in this measure. Bruno Le Roux, the leader of the socialist MPs group at the National Assembly, said the fact that the measure would have its own legislative framework rather than being simply an amendment to other legislation was an “advance and absolutely not a backwards step”.
Before the Christmas break, however, it did not seem very likely that there would be a second law on the family. This legislation, though it had been floated by the prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault back in October, had not been allocated parliamentary time nor did it have any content. Many saw it simply as an attempt by the government to kick the fraught issue of medically-assisted procreation for all into the legislative long grass. Indeed, in recent months the family minister herself, who would have preferred from the start to have seen a law integrating all issues relating to parentage in the legislation on marriage, has been insisting to socialist Members of Parliament that “there is nothing to put in a [second] law on the family”.
Then in mid-December the government and the leaders of the socialist majority in Parliament reached an agreement. It was, as President François Hollande put it, for “sovereign” Parliament to decide the fate of the issue of medically-assisted procreation for all, and if the socialist majority put down an amendment in favour then the government would not oppose it The only conditions were that there should be no conflict on the issue between the executive and the the parliamentary party, and that medically-assisted procreation should be restricted to married lesbian couples, as the legislation deals with marriage.
However this deal did not allow for a show of opposition from a section of the ruling party. After a vote by socialist MPs on December 19th to put down an amendment, 40 of them later said the vote had been too hasty, and let it be known that they would not put their names to the amendment on medically-assisted procreation. In his response on December 21st, in a letter seen by Mediapart, Bruno Le Roux told the MPs that no one would have been forced to sign off on the amendment. He said it “will only be signed by those MPs who specifically want to associate their names with it. It's pointless to suggest the opposite.”
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1: The French term used is 'familles recomposées', literally 'recomposed families'.
2: The French term used here is 'Nés sous X' or 'born anonymously' referring to a law, unique to France, under which a mother can legally abandon her child just after birth, her name being kept from any birth certificate. In theory this means the child can never find out their birth mother's identity, though under certain conditions – with the agreement of the mother - the veil of secrecy can be lifted. The phrase 'accouchement sous X' (or 'anonymous birth') is also used.
'We don't have a crystal ball'
Faced with this noisy rebellion from a section of the ruling party, which was relayed by some party bigwigs – including senior MP Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and former minister Élisabeth Guigou - the prime minister's and president’s advisers thus resurrected the law on the family as a “practical” way of removing the issue of medically-assisted procreation which is so dividing the Left. It was given a parliamentary timetable and a rapid one at that, as the text of the law will be presented to the council of ministers when the law on “marriage for all” is still navigating its way between the National Assembly and the Senate.
It is a typical François Hollande tactic, to try to keep everyone on board. “It is more than anything a policy adjustment to ensure that no one loses face, but it's a bit obvious,” says one parliamentarian who asked not to be named.
In any case, several sources have indicated that putting the medically-assisted procreation measure into the marriage legislation may not be judged constitutional by the Constitutional Council – which has just struck down the 75% tax rise promised by President Hollande - as it would be offered only to married lesbians and not all lesbians.
In theory, then, the current law on marriage for all will be restricted to dealing simply with Hollande's election promise number 31, namely opening up marriage and adoption to homosexual couples.
Until just a few days ago, however, there was no guarantee that the extension of access to medically-assisted procreation would definitely appear in either of the two pieces of legislation. When asked whether the issue would be voted through in 2013 an official in the prime minister's office retorted: “We don't have a crystal ball. If it is in the family legislation, then it will be in the family legislation. In any event, the line hasn't changed: we will let Parliament decide on this. But for the moment we are defending [the] marriage and adoption [legislation], which has sparked opposition and which needs defending.”
Since then the prime minister's announcement has clarified that the MAP measure will be in the new family legislation.
One mystery remains, namely the strategy of the prime minister and president who are clearly not greatly enthused by these issues. Before Christmas, at a time when they were worried about polls appearing to show an erosion of public support on adoption by homosexual couples, the executive was keen to bring the issue surrounding medically-assisted procreation to an end. And then, lo and behold, they have extended the calendar by several months. By doing so they perhaps hope to “dilute” the controversial subjects linked to homosexual parenting such as medically-assisted procreation within the framework of a law concerning all families (on the status of third parties, adoption and so on).
But some supporters of medically-assisted procreation fear the government’s decision will do precisely the reverse and increase opposition at a time when the same-sex marriage proposals are provoking significant protests in the country.
Socialist MP Patrick Bloche broadly welcomed the government’s announcement. But he said there was a risk that ministers had complicated matters and opened up two fronts of potential opposition.”We will find ourselves with two law proposals instead of one. That will have the major drawback of giving opponents the opportunity to mobilise themselves twice. We could have dealt with it all in one single law,” he said.
And Nicolas Gougain, spokesman for the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transsexual group Inter-LGBT, said they were “very disappointed” that the issue of medically-assisted procreation had been pushed back from the same-sex marriage law to new family legislation.”The debate, which is attracting more openly homophobic comments, is becoming harder and harder to bear for homosexuals, for families.”
A number of MPs also point out that the parliamentary timetable is already full and question how the new bill can be accommodated.
Meanwhile both Green MPs and communist MP Marie-Georges Buffet have said they will put down an amendment on medically-assisted procreation in the current legislation to ensure it is debated at the same time as same-sex marriage.
Opponents to the proposed marriage for all law are staging a demonstration in Paris on Sunday January 13th. Several hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected from across France, and the police have warned there could be an “exceptional” turnout.
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English version by Michael Streeter