French President Emmanuel Macron’s new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe didn’t back same-sex marriage
The new French president has appointed a man who refused to vote for same-sex marriage as prime minister.
President Macron has announced that Edouard Philippe will be the new prime minister.
The 46-year-old is a Republicans party MP and mayor of the northern port of Le Havre.
As a member of parliament for Normandy he refused to vote in favour of same-sex marriage, instead opting to abstain.
The appointment brings into question Macron’s promise to defend equal marriage – legislation Macron had called “an enrichment of what the family is in France that shows its importance to all of us”.
Macron ran on a platform as a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, having dedicated an entire section of his manifesto to addressing LGBT issues.
New Prime Minister Philippe will take over from the current Socialist PM, Bernard Cazeneuve, who backed equal marriage.
As a student, Mr Philippe had been an activist for the social-democrat faction within the French Socialist party, before leaving the party to join the right.
It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his own party.
The only other examples have been following poor parliamentary election results, where the president has been forced to pick a different party.
In his inauguration speech, Presiden Macron called for France to re-find its “self-confidence”.
He said: “This is why my mandate will be guided by two imperatives: the first will be to give the French their self-confidence back.”
He added that “the power of France is not declining – that we are on the brink of a great renaissance”.
Emmanuel Macron was elected the next president of France following the race between him and far-right Le Pen.
Macron won the French election taking 66.1 percent of the vote, compared to the 33.9 percent won by Le Pen.
The new president, who is the youngest president to ever be elected in France, has pledged to end everyday homophobia as well as work place anti-LGBT discrimination.
In an interview with the Russian controlled news outlet Sputnik, National Assembly member Nicolas Dhuicq claimed that “there is very wealthy gay lobby” behind Macron with a number of “open homosexuals” close to him.
The former economy minister, who tied the knot with wife Brigitte Trogneux in 2007, laughed off the claims.
He said: “I hear people saying that I have a secret life or something. It’s not nice for Brigitte… she is asking herself how I could physically do that.
“She shares my life from morning to night.”
