French officials have denied a report
that President Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to include gay marriage
in his re-election platform, Business
Week reported.
Valerie Pecresse, a spokeswoman for the
government, messaged to her followers on Twitter that the claim, run
in the paper Liberation, was not accurate.
Sarkozy “didn't change his mind, he
is not favorable to gay marriage,” tweeted Pecresse, a minister in
the Union for a Popular Movement Party.
According to a poll released Saturday,
support for marriage equality has grown by 20 percent since 2000.
The BVA opinion poll for Le
Parisien newspaper found that 63 percent of the 971 adults
surveyed favor the legalization of gay marriage.
Since 1999 France has recognized gay
and lesbian couples with PACS, a form of domestic partnership. The
law offers significantly fewer protections than marriage, and gay
couples are barred from joint adoption of children.
During the 2007 presidential race,
Sarkozy pledged to reform PACS into something closer to the UK's
civil partnership. However, the law has not changed.
Socialist Party presidential candidate
Francois Hollande said on Friday that he would add gay marriage to
his platform.