France's upper house of parliament, the Senate, is backing a draft law that will ban undocumented immigrants in the country from getting married. The move is seen as part of a series of legislative changes aimed at curbing irregular migration. Opponents of the law however say the bill is unconstitutional in its current wording.
The Senate approved the draft law at its first reading and with a high participation rate, with 227 votes being in favor and 110 against the bill in the chamber of 348 senators.
The bill will next have to pass through the National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, before it can be signed into law.
At this stage, there still is scope for amendments to be added to the legal text before it is made law, and it can theoretically also be voted down, which would mean that the motion would be dismissed.
That, however, is an unlikely scenario, as the draft law has the backing of senior government members such as Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who are both trying to clamp down on irregular migration.
Politically, immigration remains a top issue in France, after elections held last summer resulted in a hung parliament, with a marked shift towards the right. Even more moderate parties are feeling the pressure to address immigration to prevent a further move of the political landscape in the same direction.
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400 sham marriages per year
The draft legislation, say those who support it, is designed to block sham marriages of foreigners to French nationals, which is seen as a loophole to gain French residency and, ultimately, citizenship.
While there are no definitive numbers on how many fraudulent marriages are detected each year, a report by French public national broadcaster TF1 from this week said that roughly 400 cases of sham marriages were detected annually in 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2019, there were over 550 cases reported.
Overall, about 247,000 marriages take place annually in France, making instances of sham marriages quite rare at roughly a rate of one in about 620.
Still, authorities seek to make this route to becoming regularized in France unavailable, with reports indicating that French nationals entering a fake marriage are offered around 10,000 euros, according to TF1.
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Legal challenges on multiple levels
Critics of the bill say, however, that it is unconstitutional, citing a 2003 decision issued by the French Constitutional Council, which states that a foreign national without legal papers in France must be permitted to marry.
The wording of that decision says that the irregular status "cannot in itself be an obstacle to the marriage of the person concerned."
The draft law in its current form could also be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which states that all "(m)en and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right."
Among those criticizing the draft law in the Senate was Green Party senator Melanie Vogel, who referred to the motion as "a full-scale attack on the Constitution."
Socialist Party senator Corinne Narassiguin meanwhile opined that the law would further amplify "an anxiety-provoking climate of xenophobia and racism" in France.
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Navigating a legal quagmire
The Senate vote came just days after a case, in which prosecutors opened a docket against the mayor of the southern town of Beziers, who had refused to officiate over a wedding between a French woman and an undocumented Algerian man in 2023.
Another case in northern France, also in 2023, resulted in a man being deported after the local mayor also refused to officiate over a wedding under similar circumstances.
The case drew nationwide attention, as the issue of marriage law in France continues to make headlines.
Under the French principle of laicite (secularism), matters of the state have to be kept separate from matters of faith and religion. French law therefore dictates that all marriages must take place in city halls, which can mean that they are at the discretion of the officiant.
However, under current law, it is illegal for a mayor to intervene in such a manner. The next reading of the bill in the National Assembly, is likely to focus on ways to allow mayors to refuse certain marriages suspected to be fraudulent, and thus navigate around the existing legal hurdles.
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with AFP