This paper focuses on the French debate about same-sex marriage legalization. The French government has been successful in gathering together an important part of the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant and Orthodox Christian communities, albeit against the legalization.
This paper analyses the public and political debate over the same-sex marriage regulation in France, as it unfolded in the French press, to identify its actors, frames and discourses. Furthermore, it develops a longitudinal analysis on “traditional family” as a value in France by drawing on national and comparative survey data.
Our underlying assumption is that the role played by religion should be understood in the wider context of the neo-liberal crisis. We argue that the defence of the traditional family is also linked to the widespread citizens’ mistrust vis-à-vis national and international institutions. Indeed, as surveys demonstrate, the institution represented by the family is by far the most trusted by French citizens.
