This bill, which dates back to mid-2020, is considered by the majority as a “progress text”.
The National Assembly definitively approved this Tuesday, by 96 votes against 15, and 4 abstentions, a bill LREM aimed at facilitating adoption in France.
The flagship measure of this law is unquestionably the opening of adoption to PACS or cohabiting couples and no longer just married couples.
A measure which must put an end to “discrimination relating to the rules of union or homoparenthood”, for the deputy LREM Coralie Dubost.
Marriage is “not a guarantee of stability” for children, also justified majority MP Monique Limon.
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The bill also lowers the minimum age required for each adopter, from 28 to 26 years.
And the minimum duration of community life is reduced from two to one year.
One or other of these conditions is required to apply for accreditation.
These measures are intended to facilitate adoption in France, while the number of families waiting to complete their adoption project is far greater than the adoptions carried out each year: more than 10,000 approvals to adopt are in progress, whereas in 2019, only 706 state wards (out of 3,248) were adopted – to which were added 421 children adopted abroad.
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The Secretary of State for Childhood Adrien Taquet praised measures allowing “to anchor adoption” in a modernity which gives more room to family models” diverse in our society.
opposition on the right
However, the text was not unanimous among the deputies.
The right considers that the text goes against the objective of "giving a family to a child, and not the other way around".
LR deputies consider, for example, that marriage is “the most protective framework”.
The LREM text also aims to improve the functioning of family councils, supervisory bodies for state wards in the departments.
The family council will only include one member competent in the medical, psychological or social field, instead of two child protection experts, which worries the Enfance et famille d'adoption (EFA) association. .
A specialist in the fight against discrimination must enter instead.
This measure makes it possible "to anchor adoption in the protection of children", justified Adrien Taquet.
The bill also intends to clarify certain rules: the biological parents entrusting their child will have to consent to it becoming a pupil of the State, and thus that it can be adopted - the absence of express consent to the adoption is criticized by the right, some on the left as well as by associations in the sector.
Finally, for more guarantees during an international adoption, support will be compulsory by an organization authorized for adoption or the French Adoption Agency (AFA).
Individual international adoption will thus be prohibited.
This law is part of a series of societal markers at the end of Emmanuel Macron's five-year term.