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France: President’s partner to be a witness at one of the first same-sex weddings

Dec 04 2012
Written by PinkNews Staff Writer

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a pink background.

Valérie Trierweiler, the partner of the French President François Hollande, has shown her support for moves to make marriage equal by announcing that she will be a witness at one of the first same-sex marriages.

President Hollande came under criticism for saying that he respected mayors’ “freedom of conscience” on conducting the marriages of gay couples and stated the possibility of allowing them to delegate responsibility to councillors if they had a personal objection to marrying gay couples.

The comments, made at a national mayors’ conference last month sparked widespread anger from equal marriage supporters, with some fearing that the president was succumbing to political pressure by opponents.

The Inter-LGBT association described it as “treachery”.

President Hollande later retracted the remarks, saying they were “inappropriate”. “The law must be applied everywhere,” President Hollannde said.

Ms Trierweiler has now revealed that she has accepted the invitation of her very close gay friends to participate at their wedding.  ”I’m delighted that I’m going to be a witness at one of the very first marriages for all,” Trierweiler was quoted as saying.  The main debate on the introduction of equal marriage will take place in February of next year.

Last month, the former first lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy backed the current French Government’s plans to make same-sex marriage legal.

The wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy told Vogue that she disagrees with her husband’s stated position to oppose marriage equality for gay couples.

The former model said: “I am rather in favour of gay marriage and adoption, I have a lot of friends – women and men – who are in this situation and I see nothing unstable or perverse in families with homosexual parents.”