France ready to change civil pact

RENNES, France — As France celebrates the fifth anniversary of its “Pacte Civil de Solidarite” (PaCS for short; in English, Civil Solidarity Pact) — a law that gives same-sex couples certain social, legal and financial benefits — the government is preparing changes to satisfy additional demands of homosexuals without opening the debate they seek regarding homosexual “marriage,” still illegal in France.

“I am amazed of the adaptability of our society. The PaCS is now part of the base of the social contract,” said Roselyne Bachelot, a conservative politician who voted for the PaCS in the national Parliament in 1999 — against the views of her Union for a Popular Movement — the UMP party of President Jacques Chirac, whose opposition has since changed.

“In five years, it has become a triumph,” she recently told Le Monde newspaper.

Since the law was adopted on Nov. 15, 1999, more than 130,000 such contracts have been signed nationwide, according to the Justice Ministry.

Homosexual couples are not the only ones involved: Any two unmarried persons who want to live together can contract a PaCS, on condition they share common housing and are neither direct ascendants or descendants (mother, grandfather or child), nor too close relatives (brother, uncle or niece).

According to a French Parliament report issued two years after the law’s enactment, apparently about 60 percent of Civil Solidarity Pacts were concluded by heterosexual couples.

“With its recognition in the civil code, the PaCS is putting an end to the monopoly marriage used to have in organizing the common social life of any two persons,” said the parliamentary report in November 2001.

However, the PaCS is more than just an alternative between marriage and cohabitation, as is the case for heterosexual couples.

Because homosexual “marriages” are not recognized in France, the PaCS gives same-sex couples legal, fiscal and social advantages they never had before.

For instance, if both people involved work for the same company, they are entitled to take their vacations at the same time. Civil servants also have priority in job transfers to relocate with their partner.

“The PaCS is, however, going far beyond these simple rights,” concluded the parliamentary report. “For homosexuals, it is a real recognition. Despite the homophobic outburst it provoked, the PaCS unquestionably made homosexuality something ordinary,” it concluded.

According to various opinion surveys, more and more French people are in favor of the Civil Solidarity Pact. In September 1998, when the debates in Parliament were very heated, popular support for the idea of the Civil Solidarity Pact was at 49 percent, and by 2003 it was 70 percent.

Among homosexuals, attitudes are also changing. They are now more and more in favor of modifying the Civil Solidarity Pact. For instance, many are calling for the possibility to inherit a portion of the pension of a partner who dies. They also seek parity with married couples regarding inheritance-tax rules.

While marriages are conducted in City Halls, Civil Solidarity Pacts are concluded in courts of first instance, something that advocates for homosexuals would also like to change.

In the 2005 finance bill adopted last month, Nicolas Sarkozy, then economic minister, abolished the three-year period needed before people who have concluded a PaCS can benefit from joint taxation. This was the first reform of the original Civil Solidarity Pact.

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