While he was a member of parliament for Savoie, the new Prime Minister appointed by Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, September 5, opposed a bill aimed at ending the discrimination that gave the age of sexual consent at 15 for heterosexuals and 18 for homosexuals.
Michel Barnier was appointed Prime Minister on Thursday, September 5, and here are the past positions of the 73-year-old man, the oldest to enter Matignon under the Fifth Republic. And if there is one vote that attracts the wrath of the left to the former European Commissioner, it is that of December 20, 1981. On that day, a few months after François Mitterrand came to power, the National Assembly debated a bill on the decriminalization of homosexuality put forward by the feminist figure Gisèle Halimi, alongside the Minister of Justice, Robert Badinter. A campaign promise of the new left-wing president, the text specifically proposed repealing the second paragraph of Article 331 of the Penal Code, which repressed “indecent or unnatural acts with a minor of the same sex over 15 years of age”.
It was therefore a question of putting an end to the discrimination that gave sexual majority (authorization to have sexual intercourse with an adult without the latter committing a criminal offense) from the age of 15 to heterosexuals and from the age of 18 to homosexuals, and thus to de facto decriminalize gay and lesbian relationships. For Gisèle Halimi, this paragraph that the majority wanted to repeal established “a double criminal majority”, with “a heterosexual majority [qui] would be acquired at 15 years of age and the homosexual majority [qui] would only be reached at the age of 18.” “It is not possible […] to provide different solutions for heterosexuals and homosexuals, because this discrimination is based in truth, whether or not it is concealed under political or constitutional law arguments, on an implicit or explicit moral judgment: homosexuality is abnormality”, stressed the lawyer, who became a member of parliament for Isère in 1981.
“A government hostile to our rights and existence”
But Michel Barnier, who was then a young 30-year-old MP, sitting on the benches of the Rally for the Republic (RPR), had voted against the bill, like other future figures of the right – François Fillon, Jacques Toubon, Philippe Séguin… Despite this opposition, the decriminalisation of homosexuality had been adopted by the National Assembly, by 327 votes, notably socialists and communists, against 155.
“What a strange message to a country that is looking for ways to unite by all means to name someone who voted against the decriminalization of homosexuality. What is the meaning of such a message?” launched the leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, shortly after the appointment of Michel Barnier. Other deputies from his camp quickly followed suit, such as Claire Lejeune or Louis Boyard, who described a man “obsessed with immigration, [qui] voted against the decriminalization of homosexuality.”
Outside the political class, Inter-LGBT, which brings together several dozen associations defending the LGBT community and notably organizes the Pride March, said: “dismayed”, seeing in this nomination “a clearer sign than ever that the government will be hostile to our rights and existence.” A year later, in December 1982, Michel Barnier would once again distinguish himself by voting, with his camp, against the Roudy law which established the reimbursement of IVG by Social Security.
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