The partner of a gay policeman gunned down by a jihadist on Paris’s Champs-Elysees avenue in April has married him posthumously.
Former president Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo attended the wedding on Tuesday of the late Xavier Jugele and Etienne Cardiles.
The ceremony took place in the mayor’s office of the XIVth arrondissement in front of a small group of officials, the daily Le Parisien reported Wednesday.
Prior to Jugele’s death, he and Cardiles were already in a civil partnership.
Jugele, 37, was shot dead on April 20 while on duty on the famous Parisian avenue, three days before the first round of France’s presidential election.
French law states that posthumous marriages are allowed if there are ‘significant grounds’ for the marriage, and terror attacks fall under that category, according to the government’s website.
The living spouse must show that the deceased had ‘unequivocal’ desire to get married.
If the qualifications are met, the president of France can approve of the marriage by decree. Prior to his death, Jugele had campaigned for gay rights within the police force.
At a moving remembrance ceremony led by then president Hollande on April 25, Cardiles said the killer would ‘not have my hatred’, echoing the words of the husband of a victim of the November 2015 attacks in the French capital.
‘I have no hatred, Xavier, because it is not like you and does not fit with what made your heart beat nor what made you a guardian of the peace,’ he said.
Addressing hundreds of mourners at a ceremony at Paris police headquarters, Jugele’s partner Etienne Cardiles spoke of his ‘extreme pain’ at the death of the officer, who had campaigned for gay rights within the police force.
‘This pain makes me feel closer to your comrades who suffer in silence like you and me,’ he said in a trembling voice, describing Jugele as a cinema and theatre buff who lived ‘a life of joy and huge smiles’.
Jugele was the fifth policeman slain by jihadists in attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives across France since January 2015.
Hollande posthumously made him a knight of the Legion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honours.
Shortly after Jugele’s death it emerged that he had been among the first responders at the Bataclan theatre in Paris on November 13, 2015, where IS gunmen massacred 90 concertgoers.
He returned to the venue a year later when it reopened for a concert by British star Sting, telling a BBC interviewer he wanted ‘to celebrate life and say ‘no’ to terrorism’.
POSTHUMOUS MARRIAGE IN FRANCE: HOW A CEREMONY MADE FOR GIRLFRIENDS OF SOLDIERS WAS MADE AVAILABLE TO ALL The concept of marrying a spouse posthumously first came to France during World War I, when women would marry soldiers who had died weeks earlier. It opened to civilians in 1959, when a dam broke in Frejus, France, and killed 400 people, including an engaged man, who’s fiancee pleaded with then-President Charles de Gaulle to let her still wed her dead fiance.Posthumous marriage was then made legal in France with Article 171 of the Civil Code.The article states: ‘The President of the Republic may, for grave reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage where one of the future spouses is dead after the completion of the official formalities indicating unequivocally his or her consent.’In this case, the effects of the marriage date back to the day preceding that of the death of the spouse.’However, this marriage may not involve any right of intestate succession to the benefit of the survivor and no matrimonial regime is considered to have existed between the spouses.’Since becoming legal, hundreds of people have formally filed for postmortem matrimony.They do so by sending requests to the president of France, and the request goes through a series of officials before it is finally approved.The man or woman filing for marriage must show that they had originally planed on getting married, and the family of the decesased must aprrove.Some requests include records that show serious cause, like the birth of the child.The marriage applies retroactively to the day before the deceased spouse died.The marriage does not permit the living spouse to receive any of the deceased spouse’s property or money.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.