In costume in the courtyard of the town hall of Béziers (Hérault), the young man does not take off. “I find that disgusting!” he says to the journalists present. As he had announced in recent days in the media, the mayor Robert Ménard refused, this Friday, July 7, to marry the couple, whose future husband is an Algerian in an irregular situation and under the influence of an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
“We are very much in love with my wife”, affirms the young man at the microphone of CNews, ensuring that he has lived with his partner for “seven months”. “As long as my wife is with me [sic], I don’t care about Ménard,” he added, saying he was ready to go “to Algeria” to celebrate his wedding. “And I will return to France with my papers.”
His companion met Robert Ménard in the morning, alone. “The mayor told me that it was not personal, but that he would not marry us,” she reports to Midi Libre. The couple therefore remained, with a few relatives, in the hall of the town hall before leaving, still according to the local newspaper, to file a complaint with the police station. “Let them file a complaint”, reacted the mayor on CNews, considering that the situation “puts the State before its responsibilities”. During the meeting with the young woman, who according to him held “a militant speech”, he claims to have surprised her “recording the conversation”.
The city councilor had warned that he would refuse to celebrate this union. “He is Algerian, he is 23 years old, he wants to marry a French woman six years older than him, already a mother of three children: it smells like white marriage with full nose!”, He was annoyed this Wednesday in Le Figaro , also describing a bride-to-be who “doesn’t work and lives on welfare.”
The prosecutor had however reminded him that the law obliged him to celebrate this marriage. The Béziers prosecutor’s office indicates that the two future spouses were received separately on May 15 and questioned about their relationship, reports Le Métropolitain. “No inconsistency” was noted and the prosecution had not decided to suspend their union. The marriage must be celebrated independently of the situation of the future spouses in the eyes of the administration. It does not, however, prevent expulsion.