France’s youngest MP says gay marriage will lead to polygamy

The youngest MP in the history of French politics has raised numerous eyebrows over the weekend after coming out against gay marriage and adoption

26-year-old Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of Front National party founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the niece of Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, comes from family and a political party famously not averse to scandals and controversy (Jean-Marie Le Pen was sacked from the party by his own daughter for allegedly saying the Nazi gaz chambers were ‘a detail of history’, while Marine LePen calls herself ‘Madame Frexit’).

So it’s not a surprise that the love child of the French far-right movement, who was she was 22 when she was elected at the French National Assembly in 2012.

Speaking with the Telegraph this weekend (July 23), the rising star of the National Front spoke at length about issues such as the Nice attack, Brexit and her family – but it was for her opinions on same-sex marriage and adoption, which were both legalised back in 2013, which grabbed the headlines.

Maréchal-Le Pen came out against same-sex families, arguing that her opinion was based on her own experience of being abandoned by her biological father.

”If I fight for children’s right to have a father and a mother, it’s because I know what it is to lack that,” she said. “I don’t think I’d have thrown myself into the fight in quite the same way, were it not for my own background.

“I am against gay adoption,” she added.

“I believe that it’s very important for a child to have a father and a mother, and that parents aren’t interchangeable. I am very attached to the idea that my husband spends time with our daughter and that he fulfils his role.”

On her opposition to marriage equality, she cited the oft-heard line that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamous marriage.

“Once you break away from the natural framework of a man and a woman, you could have other minorities who want their form of love recognised by the state. If you endorse homosexuality [in marriage], why not polygamy?” she said.

It would be interesting to hear what the National’s Front’s Vice President, Florian Philippot, who was outed by a French gossip magazine back in 2014, thinks of the comments.

Words: Salomé Baudino

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