The Democracy Project

France became the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage Saturday after President Francois Hollande signed it into law following months of bitter political debate.

France’s Constitutional Council on Friday cleared a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, turning down a challenge by the right-wing party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Attacks on gays and homophobic speech spiked last year in the run-up to the French parliament’s approval of a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, a leading gay rights watchdog said Tuesday.

French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday Germany and France must work together whatever “sensitivities” might arise, as ties between the eurozone’s top two economies cool over an ideological split between belt-tightening and investment-fuelled growth.

Just like her partner the president, Valerie Trierweiler has had to abandon some of her pre-election promises over the course of his first year in office.

President Francois Hollande on Wednesday urged France to put a divisive debate behind it after parliament defied months of protests to approve a bill legalising same-sex marriages.

Tens of thousands of people were expected to cram the streets of Paris Sunday in a last-ditch protest to stop controversial gay marriage legislation from being approved.

Gay marriage may have passed with barely hitch in many countries, but it has kicked up a huge storm in France, a country often seen as the champion of secularism and notoriously relaxed on issues pertaining to private life.

France’s disgraced former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac has resigned from parliament, officials close to the speaker of France’s National Assembly Claude Bartolone told AFP Thursday.

Pressure was building on French President Francois Hollande on Thursday over a disgraced ex-minister’s secret foreign bank account, as it emerged that his one-time campaign treasurer was a partner in companies registered in the Cayman Islands.