Lao Can’t Have Same-Sex Marriage In France

Same-sex couples in France are not allowed to marry if one of the two is a Lao citizen or an expatriate of one of 11 countries, French officials said.

France signed agreements with the countries stipulating their expatriates are prohibited from marrying under France’s new gay marriage law passed in May, Radio France Internationale reported Thursday.

The 11 countries are Poland, Morocco, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Cambodia, Laos, Tunisia and Algeria.

The accords with Cambodia, Laos, Tunisia and Algeria were signed in the late 1950s, the agreements with the Balkan states replaced an agreement with the former Yugoslavia, the broadcaster said.

“When a marriage is planned between two people of the same sex, and one of the future spouses is an expatriate from one of these countries, the civil registrar cannot perform the marriage,” said a recommendation note sent to French civil servants about how the new marriage laws should be applied.

The agreements were aimed at “regulating the status of immigrant workers or people of French origin who stayed in those countries at the time and wanted to remain subjected to French law,” Mathias Audit, a law professor from Paris West University Nanterre La Defense, told France 24.

Source: UPI