French Lesbian Adoption Case Won After Ten Year Battle

After a decade of fighting for her right to adopt a child, a lesbian schoolteacher, known as Emmanuelle B has been granted that chance in an Eastern France court. Marking a win for her personally, this move doesn’t however mark much progress for adoption by same sex couples with the government spokesman telling the BBC that “The government and the president [Nicolas Sarkozy] have on several occasions expressed our position, which is that we are not in favor of the adoption of children by same-sex couples,”.

And this is something that Emmanuelle B and her partner, who she has been living with since 1990, can attest to as it was back in 1998 that they first applied to adopt as a couple, but were turned down because the laws in France only allow for individual gays and lesbians to adopt. Taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights, Emmanuelle B did see the case ruled in her and her partners favour, with France ordered to pay the court costs and damages, but the adoption was to be halted once again when the French authorities barred them saying the couple were in disagreement over what age child they would adopt.

Success though for the couple finally occurred on Tuesday when an administrative court tribunal in Besancon, in eastern Francew which overruled the Jura regional assembly’s ruling

In England and Wales, both gay, lesbian and bisexual couples and individuals can apply to be adoptive parents, thanks to the Sexual Orientation Regulations of 2007, with the same right in Scotland as part of the Adoption & Children (Scotland) Act 2007.