France is set to have its first same-sex wedding this year, after a local Mayor took exception to the lack of access to marriage for lesbian and gay couples.
Noel Mamere, mayor of the town of Begles in south west France, has said he will conduct the ceremony for the two men in June, after finding no laws in the country that could block it. Although not marriage, France has offered civil union ceremonies, similar in the rights and responsibilities to our currently debated Civil Partnerships bill, since 2000.
Mamere told the Reuters news agency it is “unacceptable” that lesbian and gay people do not have full equality when it comes to marriage, saying that in the European Union there is “nothing extraordinary” about same-sex marriages.
He added that the debate is spreading fast across the EU and there was no reason why France should be excluded.
“Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands have done it already and the new Spanish prime minister… has put it in his political programme,” he said.