French Senate approves law to ban marriages with illegal immigrants

ParisFrance wants to ban marriages between French people and foreigners in an irregular situation, even if they are not marriages of convenience. The Senate – dominated by the right – approved on Thursday a bill to prevent any foreigner who does not have a residence permit from marrying a person of French nationality. With the exception of the left, parties from all over the parliamentary spectrum, including those in government, voted in favour.

The text is very likely to be approved in the Assembly as well, but, according to experts quoted by the French press, its constitutionality is questionable. The Socialists have already announced that if the law is finally approved, they will take it to the constitutional council. According to the jurisprudence of this institution, guardian of the Magna Carta, in France marriage is a "fundamental freedom" protected by the Constitution. In a decision in 2003, the council opposed "the irregular nature of a foreigner's situation being an obstacle" to marriage.

Environmentalist Mélanie Vogel considers the law "a large-scale attack on the Constitution, on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and therefore on the rule of law," she said. "Asking the same question twice to the constitutional judge 20 years apart is neither insolent nor kamikaze. It is a recognition that society is evolving," said Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of Justice.

Banning a marriage

The approval of the text in the Senate coincides with the summons to court of the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, an independent close to the far right, for having refused in 2023 to marry a couple made up of a French woman and an Algerian man in an irregular situation and with an expulsion order from France. Ménard argued that it was a marriage of convenience.

The fact is that in France a mayor does not have the power to prohibit a marriage. If he suspects that it is a marriage of convenience, he must report it to the prosecutor's office, which will study the case and decide whether to authorize or prohibit the wedding. Ménard did not do so and will have to answer to justice. He faces a sentence of up to five years in prison.

In addition, the woman has said publicly that it was not a marriage of convenience and has accused the mayor of Béziers of having "destroyed" her life. The 23-year-old man was expelled from France shortly after the failed wedding. According to the woman's account, they had been living together for two years and her daughter – the fruit of a previous relationship – considered the man her father. "It was not a marriage of convenience and I cannot bear that accusation," the woman said in an interview on BFMTV. "We lived together, my daughter knew him since she was little and she told him that she was a child." dad", he explained to denounce his situation.