Mayors may decline to marry gays

MAYORS will be allowed to choose if they carry out gay marriages or not, President Hollande has announced, in a bid to placate opposition to his plans.

The president made the remarks during a speech to the Association des maires de France.

Commenting on demonstrations that took place last weekend the president said: “These debates are legitimate in a society like ours.”

The Interior Minister Christiane Taubira will hold meetings with representatives of the AMF in December to discuss methods by which a 'conscience clause' could be applied to legislation.

A spokesman for the president said the move was not a climbdown, but a way of easing the path towards legalisation.

Many town mayors and representatives of associations of local government took part in an anti-gay marriage march in the capital last weekend.

Other options include enlarging the geographical area in which a couple choose to marry or widening the powers of delegation for local authority staff to carry out marriages.

“When one wants to be successful with a reform, you need to react to questions and criticisms centred on it,” they said.

Parliamentary debates on the law are scheduled to begin on January 29.

The spokesman for Inter-LGBT, Nicolas Gauguin said the president's suggestion may not be legally possible: “I don't understand how you could justify a law that is not applied in the same manner across the whole country.”

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