Gay law farce deals heavy blow to Jospin

LIONEL JOSPIN'S pink-red-green coalition has been severely damaged by the temporary defeat of a proposal to give legal status to homosexual couples and other unmarried partners.

The draft law was declared inadmissible in a procedural coup by the centre-right opposition after scores of Socialist deputies failed to turn up for the opening of the debate in the National Assembly on Friday.

Although the Jospin administration can - and will - present the measure to parliament again next month, the defeat is a damaging set-back for his coalition after 16 months of charmed and successful government. It made him look weak and ridiculous.

Mr Jospin had gone on television the previous evening to explain the controversial proposal to the French people. The next day, a large body of his own Socialist deputies - not his green or Communist allies - failed to turn up to back the draft law in the assembly.

Partly, this seems to have been a lack of discipline and incompetence; partly, a craven response by some Socialist MPs to a vicious campaign against the law as a "homosexuals' charter" in the provincial press and by right-wing deputies. Worst of all, the defeat came when Mr Jospin's sureness of touch, and good luck, seem to be under sustained challenge for the first time.

The turbulence of world financial markets threatens to dull the strong growth of the French economy, which has been a principal reason for Mr Jospin's popularity. Smelling an opportunity, President Jacques Chirac has begun systematically to criticise the government's policies.

In recent days, the President has criticised the proposals for sub-marriage legal pacts, plans for a radical reform of French farm policy, and new moves to try to control the deficit in national pensions and health programmes. His supporters saythis is an attempt by Mr Chirac to re-assert himself as the leader of the chaotic French centre-right. But it is also rooted in a belief that the Jospin administration is heading into economic difficulties which will undermine its popularity.

Against this background, the defeat of the proposed Civil Solidarity Pact (Pacs) was more than just a temporary lapse of coalition discipline. "In politics, ridicule does not kill... but it wounds and it weakens," Alain Genestar, a keyFrench political commentator said in the Journal de Dimanche yesterday.

The Pacs started life as a campaign commitment by Mr Jospin to allow homosexual couples to have some of the legal and social status of married couples. The terms were expanded to include unmarried heterosexual couples and evensiblings living together. They would have the same tax advantages, property and inheritance rights as married couples, but they would not be able to adopt children.

The Pacs was virulently opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, right- wing politicians and the regional press. More than 100 Socialist deputies, many of whom had been under local pressure to oppose the Pacs, failed to turn up for the start of the debate on Friday.