On the Season Premiere of Daddy Squared Around The World we're checking to see what's life like for gay dads in France. We spoke with Aurelien and Nicolas, stars of the documentary Ghosts of the République, we look at stigma in surrogacy and try to figure out the options for gay men in France to build their families.



In the first episode, Yan and Alex look at options for gay men in France, with guests Auerlien and Nicolas, starts of the US/French documentary ‘Ghosts of the Republique.’



France is one of many European countries which is considered progressive and supportive of the gay community, in general. But in the category of gay parenting, there are some serious complications.



French law not only bans all surrogacy (for straight and gay people) in the country, but also ‘punishes’ parents who go through surrogacy abroad by refusing to recognize the children as their parents’ legal children.



“The punishment is for the child and that’s why it’s really weird that France has been condemned by the European court many times, I think 12 or 13 times, because the only person who has difficulty because of these policies is the child, who does not have the same rights as any other French child,” Aurelian says in the interview.



“Right now people are still fighting for the rights of these children who are already living in France.”



'Ghosts of the République' No More



According to Dominique Boren, co-chair of APGL, the situation has changed dramatically since the documentary.



"Surrogacy is banned in France (even inciting to engage into surrogacy journey) punished by fine and even time in prison," Boren says. "However, to my knowledge, NO ONE has ever been subject to prosecution and even less faced trial. The main goal being this non implemented law is to refrain promotion in France of surrogacy (which is quite effective with almost no surrogacy agencies holding promotion or marketing event on their services, in France."



"Since 2015 (due to our family case settled by French supreme court) no kid has been left outside of French system, and to my knowledge, progressively, all hurdles have been left. As for the parents, French legal system does recognize automatically at least one of the parents as 'real' parent (mainly the one of the parents who decides to identify himself as declared parent), the dilemma is for the second (same sex) parent. If the parenting rights acquired in the country of birth are deemed to be as per French adoption rules, then the second parent is granted same rights as the 'real' parent, through a legal process referred as exequature. Almost a formality.If not, and this is mostly the case, and will become the rule after law on access to IVF for lesbians and single women will become effective, then the second parent MUST (be married to the other parent) make an application to a family court to be granted status of adoptive parent with all parental rights attached thereto. to date, this legal process is quite simple and lean but takes time and money, and I must is meant to refrain surrogacy or least prevent from being "simple."



"Kids are not punished as such, it is rather the second parent who is facing discrimination (legal discrimination) as to establish his legitimate and rightful status of 'true' parent as the other parent. So imperfect and discriminatory though it is, at the end of day, kids do have their parents with equal rights."



Adoption



"Contrary to what is a common practice in the USA, France does not have foster care system and adoption regulations," Boren says, "and processes are fully in the hands of public administration and a collective board (in each department… more or less a state, in short) composed of representatives of various organizations, and until recently, no LGBT families NGO was present in any of the board, and APLG is to date the only NGO with representatives in few boards. (In practice, civil administrators prepare fills for adoption on behalf of appli...