French lawmakers and senators this Tuesday approved joint drafting of a bill to ban “conversion therapy”, which aims to impose heterosexuality on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, according to parliamentary sources.
The proposal by Congressman Lawrence Vansonbrooke (La République en marche, LREM) aims to bolster the criminal response against “these acts of another era,” according to the chair of the LREM parliamentary group, Christophe Castaner. The committee, which includes Representatives and Senators, has enacted the creation of a specific offense to more easily confuse the authors of conversion therapies.
This crime is punishable by two years imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros. Penalties can be up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros, in the case of aggravating circumstances.
The association said in a statement that diversion therapies are indeed punishable but that they are sometimes “difficult to seize”. If the text was the subject of a unanimous vote in the French Parliament, on October 6, the same did not happen in the Senate, where the bill received votes against.
All 28 senators from the “Republican” party (“Os Republicanos”, in Portuguese) voted 305 in favour.
There is no study in France to evaluate the evolution of the conversion therapy phenomenon. During a parliamentary mission in 2019, Lawrence Vansonbroek and Radical Left member Bastien Lachaud called “One Hundred Cases”, alarmed by the “increasing denunciations”.
In Europe, Malta, Germany, and several provinces in Spain have already banned these practices. In turn, a bill was passed on December 1 by the lower house of the Canadian Parliament. And in the UK, a bill is currently under public consultation.
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