Wed, Oct 13, 1999


FRENCH OK RIGHTS FOR UNWED COUPLES
PARIS (AP)



French legislators adopted a law on Wednesday that gives unwed gay and straight couples the same rights previously limited to the married.

The National Assembly approved the law by a vote of 315-249 nearly a year after it was introduced.

Visibly pleased leftist lawmakers stood up after the measure passed. Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou, a Socialist, said the law would help ``diminish homophobia and intolerance.´´

Conservative lawmakers immediately said they would ask the Constitutional Council to decide if the law was unconstitutional, in which case it would be void.

Conservatives argued the Civil Solidarity Pact, better known by its acronym PACS, would undermine traditional family values.

They also feared the law would lead to lifting rules forbidding gay couples to adopt or have children by artificial insemination. But the Socialists, who introduced the bill, said the law would better protect couples, regardless of their gender.

Similar legislation already exists in several European countries, including Iceland, Belgium and Sweden. Laws in Denmark and the Netherlands are even more liberal.

In France, the law would affect mainly the 4.4 million heterosexual couples who live together but are not married. Forty percent of French children are now born to unmarried couples. The number of gay couples is unknown.

The PACS law would, among other things, let couples file tax forms together after three years; help people bring foreign partners to France; force employers to take couples' joint vacation plans into account; and make partners accountable for each others' debts.

The PACS proposition also would make separation easier. A partner who wants to split from the other would be able simply to send a letter of separation to their partner and to the court.

In Germany, Volker Beck, a leading lawmaker with the Greens, junior coalition partner in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government, welcomed the French step. He said it would provide ``a tailwind for the German discussion´´ on allowing gays to register partnerships.

German Justice Minister Hertha Daeubler-Gmelin, a Social Democrat, said last month she intended to introduce a bill to grant some legal status to same-sex couples. But she said her bill would not include the right to adopt children.
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