08) GAY RIGHTS VICTORY A SETBACK TO FRENCH ULTRA-RIGHT
By Adrien Welsh
Finally, it happened! In the country which considers itself the homeland of human rights, the French Revolution and the Paris Commune, Vincent and Bruno could celebrate their wedding on May 29th. The first civil marriage between two people of the same sex put an end to legal discrimination based on sexual orientation in France.
While gay couples previously had the possibility to contract a civil union or pacte civil de solidarité, only now are certain rights of so‑called "traditional" marriage guaranteed, including the right to legally adopt children.
Vincent and Bruno's union, celebrated in Montpelier in the south of France, followed months of mobilization by socially-progressive forces. An important contribution was made by the French Communist Party and its youth movements, which confronted the far‑right and religious lobbies, and demanded the group Civitas be shut down.
The Catholic Civitas movement garnered considerable media attention, but failed to build a broad movement. Even staunch opponents of the marriage law, like the Cardinal‑Archbishop of Paris, André Armand Vingt‑Trois, were forced to call Civitas "un groupe borderline," or fringe.
Repeated calls by Civitas for homophobic demonstrations ended almost every time in riots. For example, last November women with the activist group FEMEN held a media stunt in support of the bill, dressing up in nuns' head dresses and with anti‑religious slogans painted on their bare chests. The women were harshly beaten by Civitas supporters.
The last Civitas mobilisation was held on May 26. Organisers claimed over one million people in the streets of Paris, although police sources believe there were about 150,000 participants.
The first gay marriage in France was therefore celebrated in a tense climate three days later. In addition to the guests, more than 140 media outlets and 200 riot police attended the ceremony. But many commentators felt that this sharp social confrontation could have been avoided had the law been voted earlier.
When Christiane Taubira, the Minister of Justice, originally presented the law, it would have been easily approved in the National Assembly, since Prime Minister Hollande's Socialist Party and coalition of other "Radical, Citizen and Miscellaneous Left" parliamentarians have a majority.
Instead, the government stalled, giving various reactionary forces several months to organize. Further delays took place when a much larger than usual number of amendments were proposed by right‑wing parties.
Since Francois Hollande's election in May 2012, which promised "change," only the extension of the right of marriage has actually been accomplished. But since the Socialists took power, there are 1000 more unemployed each day, representing over 730,000 people. Among the youth, more than 25% are unemployed.
As some commentators have said, same‑sex couples can now get married ‑ but can they find a job?
Hollande's policies are arguably worsening the economic climate for working people. Rejecting nationalising key sectors like automobile factories, Hollande has given 20 billion euros to the big corporations through tax cuts. The government has slashed pensions, and is pushing for "flexibility in employment" with its national inter‑professional agreement. The Minister for Higher Education, Genevieve Fioraso, is on the path of privatizing post-secondary education.
Hollande's government also spent billions of euros conducting an imperialist war in Mali, while claiming there are no funds left, and that the austerity "cure" is the only solution.
To confront these policies, the Communist Party and its progressive allies have tried to build a strong mobilisation. But without the full participation of the labour movement (especially the CFDT unions, which support the Socialist government), these initiatives have yet to lead to a broad movement.
This underscores how important it is to extend the right of marriage for everybody, to prevent any possibility for the ruling class to divide working people on any racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious or sexual basis. From this perspective, progressive and democratic social movements, and especially the Communist Party through its LGBT collectives, played a leading role.
It appears that the Socialists also benefited from a rather opportunist political calculation. By leaving so much time between November 2012, when he announced the marriage equality law, and its adoption in May, Hollande granted time for right-wing forces to mobilise. This broadly supported but also somewhat polarizing law became the centre of French political life, and all opposition to the Hollande government was led by the right.
This problematic situation led to serious consequences. First, most progressive forces, including the Communist Party, tended to support the government on most issues against the right-wing opposition, instead of building a genuine critical mass movement, oriented on a people's agenda and with working class demands at the core.
Perhaps most importantly, political debate in France became focused on gay marriage to the exclusion of other social and class issues. This helped big business, as anti‑popular measures were approved without any strong opposition in the streets.
Next year's municipal elections will be another important struggle, as leftists and Communists continue to try to block the rising Front National, a party linked with extreme‑right and anti‑immigrant movements.
(Adrien Welsh is a member of the international commission of the Young Communist League of Canada, and a European correspondent for People's Voice.)
(The above article is from the August 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)