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France’s gay marriage bill has parliament in stitches... or playing Scrabble

French lawmakers have begun addressing the government’s marriage equality bill along with the 5,396 amendments filed by the conservative opposition in the hope of hindering its progress. Fourteen consecutive days have been accorded to the bill, meaning a two-week parliamentary tug of war.

 

Seemingly fatigued by the tedium of more than 5,000 obscure amendments and the rash mudslinging that comes with late-night sessions, certain lawmakers have been finding it difficult to remain focused on the task at hand.

 

Socialist Justice Minister Christiane Taubira set the tone on Tuesday when she burst into laughter during a response to a conservative counterpart and was forced to step away from the podium, pinching her nose and shaking her head as she went. The outburst was sparked by the use of a phrase which can refer to a type of excrement. By the time the minister had stopped crying, even the leader of the house was laughing.

 

 

 

 

Next up, Thomas Thévenoud, who came under harsh criticism from conservatives when he was caught playing Scrabble by another MP. A photo of his tablet game-playing was posted on Twitter, and on closer examination, the first word on the board revealed itself as ‘branleur’, which literally means ‘wanker’ or ‘jerk-off’ and refers to someone who’s lazy.

 

 

“It was 3.30 in the morning,” Thévenoud told daily TV show Le Petit Journal. Thévenoud’s Scrabble playmate, MP Jerome Guedj, also defended the sneaky game in an amusing blog post in which he described the boredom of “thousands of identical amendments, each of which takes five to ten minutes to process,” admitting that he also had time to phone his son, his plumber, read the paper and eat a Kit Kat. Thévenoud boasted of his 102 Scrabble points at such a late hour.

 

On a slightly more serious note, the MPs criticised their conservative opponents for being “the most out of date rightwing in Europe”. Comparing the same-sex marriage debate in the British parliament, Thévenoud said that “in England, gay marriage was adopted in six hours. Here, we’ve been debating it for more than a week already.”

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5 Comments
Parliement should had put it for referendum and work on economic issues.
'marriage is historically a religious agreement'. Get over it bigots, the human species has inhabited this planet for 10 of thousands of years longer than the absurdity of the judo-christian-islamic repression. In all that time many cultures have had same sex marriages and partnerships but even if they hadn't, so what? Unless we evolve we die. It was a 'tradition' to burn witches at the stake which no longer do. Worry about your own sad pathetic little lives and let others get on with theirs. Grow up.
Marriage is historically a Religious agreement, I believed in France there was a seperation of Religion & State. Next we will have the Government making rules for Football and Rugby maybe they should bothe be played with a diamond shaped ball ?
The redefinition of marriage will debase the institution. It seems that the trend in all western democracies to denigrate history and tradition in their legal systems the dissolution of democracy will will continue. That is until the Chinese or Islamist's take over and then it will be irrelevant. Continue the downfall of civilisation as we have known it. It is not often that France follows the British lead. It is not a good idea in this instance!
Perhaps when it comes to the debate on gay marriage, it is commendable that this commonsense bill was debated and passed in such a relatively short time; however I wish that such expeditious results could also be adopted when it comes to the debates on London's next air[port and even more so regarding the next high speed rail line HS2. Unlike in France such an important transport and economic decision is going to take at least another 10 years, whilst in France another several high speed links will have been completed. In the UK the NIMBY (not in my back yard) mentality is too alive and well.