French high court rejects gay couple's marriage

An appeals court today rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in France, definitively annulling the knot tied by two men in 2004.

“Under French law, marriage is a union between a man and a woman,” the court ruled, backing a 2005 decision by an appeals court in Bordeaux.

Stephane Charpin and Bertrand Charpentier were married in a much-publicised civil ceremony in the town of Begles, in the Bordeaux region in south-west France, on June 5, 2004.

Greens party politician and Begles Mayor Noel Mamere performed the marriage.

The government immediately said the union was outside the law, and a series of unfavourable court decisions has followed. No other gay couple has since married in France.

Prosecutor Marc Domingo said during a court hearing that it was the parliament, not judges, who should have the final word in any legalisation of marriages by homosexual couples.

The couple said after the 2005 appeals court ruling that they would take their case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

It was not immediately clear whether they would do so.