Nicolas Sarkozy, the flashy former French president, has a message for same-sex couples who have taken advantage of the country's marriage equality law: he doesn't want them to be married anymore.
Speaking before the conservative group Common Sense on Saturday, Sarkozy called for the repeal of the law, signed by Socialist president Francois Hollande last year. Sarkozy, who's campaigning for the presidency of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party ahead of an expected 2017 presidential bid, told the audience that he favored some form of legal recognition for gay unions. But he's most definitely not on board with the whole egalite thing.
In September, Sarkozy bitterly denounced the same-sex marriage law, charging that it is “humiliating families and humiliating people who love the family."
Sarkozy -- currently on marriage number three -- still faces some skepticism from France's anti-gay movement. The anti-equality group La Manif Pour Tous responded to Sarkozy's latest comments by stating that they merely represented a "declaration of intent."
Two years after losing the presidency to Hollande, Sarkozy is gearing up for a political comeback. While he left the presidency with dismal approval ratings, Hollande's are even worse, having slipped below 20 percent amid a faltering economy. But it isn't even clear that Hollande will be a candidate for re-election in 2017, and Sarkozy will undoubtedly confront uncomfortable questions about alleged corruption should he mount another campaign.
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