Dozens of activists gathered in Bayonne, hundreds in Versailles, Clermont-Ferrand, Lille or Rennes, and up to a thousand in Nantes.
About sixty demonstrations were held this Saturday across France to oppose the bioethics bill and in particular the opening of the PMA to all women.
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Passed on August 1 at second reading in the National Assembly, the bill, whose flagship measure is the opening of medically assisted procreation (MAP) to all women, must be examined in the Senate on a date not yet fixed , towards the end of the year or early 2021.
A "fictitious filiation"
"We are asking for its withdrawal with a view to an in-depth rewriting" by the senators, declared to the press in Paris, the president of the Manif pour tous, Ludovine de la Rochère.
She denounced a text which "voluntarily institutes the absence of a father", and introduces according to her a "fictitious filiation", managed "by the State".
While surrogacy does not appear in the text, she also ruled that “of course that at the next revision of the bioethics law [...] it will be surrogacy for male couples and women. single men ”.
“We refuse to allow the law to establish a fiction of filiation.
To pretend that a father is optional is a lie.
If parliamentarians establish extended paternity leave, it is good that they recognize its importance, ”then proclaimed a woman dressed as Marianne.
Supporters and opponents face-to-face in many cities
Many counter-gatherings were mounted in a number of metropolises, such as Paris, Rennes or Nantes, where they were nearly 500 according to Ouest-France.
“Our bodies, our choices, shut up”, could we read, for example, on signs in Rennes.
In Nice, counter-demonstrators brandished “Let go of the uterus” signs.
"You do not have a monopoly on the family," chanted protesters in Bordeaux to the address of the anti-PMA.
A counter-demonstration in Rennes this Saturday./Damien MEYER / AFP
In Bayonne, as elsewhere, the two processions sometimes faced each other, under the surveillance of the police.
The Anti PMA tries to advance in the streets of Bayonne pic.twitter.com/8ufEYgq5FV
- Iurre Bidegain (@Iurrebidegain) October 10, 2020
In Paris, an incident also marked the end of the demonstration at Place Vendôme.
Two homosexual couples interfered in the procession and kissed in front of the anti-PMA activists for all.
For reasons which remain to be clarified, these people were questioned unceremoniously by the police.
Two men and two women kissing at Place Vendôme in Paris were arrested. / LP / Olivier Corsan
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In Toulouse, police officers charged with tear gas and batons a group of about twenty LGBT activists positioned on the route of the Manif pour tous.