French Bill Proposes Ban on Marriages with Undocumented Immigrants

Towards the ban on marriages between French and "irregular foreigners" in France? Senator of the Somme, Stéphane Demilly, initiated a bill at the end of 2023 which provides that "marriage cannot be contracted by a person residing irregularly on the national territory." The text will be debated in the Senate on February 20, 2025.

The examination of this bill comes at a time when the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, will be tried on February 18 for having refused to celebrate on July 7, 2023 a marriage between a French woman and an Algerian national in an irregular situation, who was under an OQTF (obligation to leave French territory). "I’m not going to marry a guy who has an obligation not to be in front of me, was outraged Robert Ménard. We’re walking on our heads!" But the mayor had overstepped his prerogatives, because the law in force authorizes marriage for all.

In an interview with BFMTV, the Minister of Justice expressed his support for Stéphane Demilly’s bill. For him, it is time to "change the law". "It is a law struck by the corner of common sense. My will is that we change the law quickly so that we cannot marry someone who would be irregular on national soil," insisted Gérald Darmanin, indicating his willingness to use the text of the senator of the Somme as a legislative vehicle. A position contrary to the one that Gérald Darmanin, then Minister of the Interior, had adopted a year ago during the examination of the immigration bill project.

"Your amendment is contrary not only to our international commitments, but also to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council, which is based on two articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Agree that it is possible to modify many things, but that it would be very bold - but after all, why not? - to want to modify the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen," Darmanin had ironized. He had added: "I see myself badly adopting an amendment whose object is contrary to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. We would enjoy ourselves for a few moments, but we know for sure that this amendment would then be censored by the Constitutional Council."

The Constitutional Council had ruled in 2023 that respect for the freedom of marriage was a "component of personal freedom protected by Articles 2 and 4 of the Declaration of 1789", and had expressed its opposition "to the irregular nature of an alien’s stay in itself constituting an obstacle to the marriage of the person concerned."