Jan-Paul Pouliquen, main architect of the civil solidarity pact, died in the town of Trappes (Yvelines), Friday April 28, at the age of 69. Founder of the Homosexuality and Socialism association in the 1980s, this ardent defender of the rights of homosexuals then created the Collective for the civil and social union contract aimed at giving a legal existence to unmarried homosexual or heterosexual couples. This will be one of the first steps towards the PACS.
At the time, Jan-Paul Pouliquen, a former communist turned chevénementist, convinced only a handful of socialist deputies. They are only eight, in November 1992, to sign the bill on the contract of civil union. It will be necessary to wait until 1999 for the left majority to establish the PACS. With seven successive readings in the Assembly and the Senate and some 120 hours of debate, the PACS was arguably the most contested proposal in Parliament that year.
“The debate on the PACS revealed the still very important weight, in the early 1980s, of religion, explained Jan-Paul Pouliquen to Le Monde in 2021. Christine Boutin had taken out the Bible at the Assembly. In response, it was very well done by the way, the Communist deputy Georges Hage had recited verses from Ecclesiastes. The religious references were extremely strong, and the violence in these debates enormous. Now that, unfortunately, the PACS law rapporteur, Jean-Pierre Michel, has passed away, I can say it: he had asked me to write him his final speech. A first for me. I had taken the quotes from each other, it was amazing. We had heard demonstrators throwing: “fags at the stake” and an elected official saying in the hemicycle: “why not the zoophilic marriage?” On the right, a man had behaved very well, it was Patrick Devedjian. He was against the PACS, but he only used legal arguments. At the time of the marriage for all, fortunately, the remarks were much less venomous. »
“Homophobia is not over”
Jan-Paul Pouliquen was also very worried about the lack of archives on the LGBT community. “While my health is deteriorating quite quickly, I still try to pass on what I can do. Most of my archives were destroyed in the fire of my house, “he still confided in 2021 to Le Monde.
In 2018, the house in which he lived with his husband in the Parisian suburbs had been the victim of a fire. He said: “One of my neighbors confessed to me, she didn’t dare tell me, that on the evening of the fire people had stopped in front of the house saying: ‘Oh well, they didn’t not burnt, it’s a shame.” I don’t remember seeing such scenes thirty or forty years ago. Homophobia is not over. »
“The PACS law was a step forward, because it made it possible to talk about homosexuality to all of France”, Jan-Paul Pouliquen told Le Monde in 2021. “When we see the messages of SOS Homophobia today, we tells himself that nothing is finished. There are more and more attacks. »
“We owe him so much,” tweeted Patrick Bloche, deputy mayor of Paris. “Our rights today owe so much to the struggles of those who, against all odds, fought to make them happen,” also commented his colleague David Belliard.
