Divorce, incest, single-parent family… It is a symbolic piece of legislation but which should make it possible to improve the lives of many French people.
Parliament definitively adopted this Thursday a text allowing, with reduced formalities, to replace the name received at birth with that of the other parent.
The National Assembly adopted the bill carried by the LREM deputy Patrick Vignal by 69 votes for, one against and two abstentions, validating it on behalf of Parliament after a final reading, after its rejection by the Senate.
This text with a “progressive” tone, dear to the Macronist majority at the Palais Bourbon, was the last to come before the deputies before the break in legislative work due to the electoral period.
Its entry into force is scheduled for July 1.
The Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti greeted before the hemicycle a "magnificent" law, synonymous with "simplification, freedom and equality".
This text “resounds in my personal history”, he confided to Elle last December.
“My father died when I was a little boy.
I was raised alone by my mother” and “thus wanted to add her name to my name.
Things were made easier because I was a lawyer known as Dupond-Moretti”.
And to add: “It is an injustice for all those who are not in my situation and who have not known notoriety.
This text redresses an injustice”.
Can't take any name
The new law opens the possibility for any adult to ask, once in his life, to take, or add, the name of his other parent, by a simple procedure in town hall, without having to formulate justification.
A very simplified procedure compared to the long and uncertain one that exists today, which involves a decision from the Ministry of Justice, and must be justified: discredited or pejorative-sounding surname, desire to Frenchify one's name or prevent the extinction of a rare surname…
The so-called “emotional” reasons, for those wishing to give up the name of a violent, incestuous, absent parent or any other personal reason, are subject to the same procedures.
Even if it makes the procedure much easier, the law will not open the possibility of taking any name: just that of the other parent.
Read also“I want to change my name since my childhood”: the testimony of Patrick, trapped in a false identity
MP Aina Kuric (Agir group) had marked the debates by evoking her personal case.
“I am the victim of an incestuous father (…) and I no longer wish to bear the name of my executioner.
I want to wear that of the woman who made me, and it's my mother, ”she had launched, describing the current complex steps to achieve this.
This law “will make it possible to put an end to suffering, to appease families”, pleads its author Patrick Vignal.
Another provision aims to make life easier for parents whose children bear only the name of the other parent.
Frequent situations, mainly for women, often after a divorce, forced to use the family record book to prove their link with their children in the event of school, administrative, medical procedures, etc.
Eight out of 10 children born in 2020 have the father's name
The text makes it easier for children to wear, in addition to the family name given at birth, the name of the other parent as a “customary name”.
The objective of this provision responds to a request from the “portemonnom” collective.
Despite a law that came into force in 2005 allowing parents to choose the name they pass on to their child (father, mother or both together), eight out of 10 children born in 2020 bear the name of their father.
The right had focused its criticisms in the Senate as well as in the Assembly on the ease deemed excessive of changing the name in view of the social, personal and symbolic importance of the surname.
The rapporteur for the Senate, Marie Mercier (LR), had pleaded for a simplified procedure but still going through the Ministry of Justice.
At first reading, the Republican deputy Marc Le Fur (LR) had denounced a drift towards an "à la carte civil status, at the risk of weakening the very notion of filiation".
But on Thursday the speaker LR Maxime Minot supported this text "which takes nothing away from anyone".
"If thanks to this law the life of some can be made easier, I will vote for it without any difficulty," he said.