Police Ready Ahead of French Vote On Gay Marriage

Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near France's National Assembly ahead of a final vote Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage, as authorities braced for the potential for violence on an issue that has unexpectedly divided France and galvanized its faltering conservative movement.

In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked and some legislators have received threats - including one who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.

One of the biggest protests against same-sex marriage drew together hundreds of thousands of people bused in from the French provinces - conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests. That demonstration ended in blasts of tear gas, as right-wing rabble-rousers, some in masks and hoods, led the charge against police, damaging cars along the Champs-Elysees avenue and making a break for the presidential palace.

When President Francois Hollande promised to legalize gay marriage, it was seen as relatively uncontroversial. But the issue has become a touchstone as his popularity has sunk to unprecedented lows, largely over France's ailing economy. Hollande's Socialists have a solid majority in the legislature, and the measure is expected to pass despite the opposition.

But the most visible face in the fight against gay marriage - a former comedienne who goes by the name of Frigide Barjot - said the movement named "A Protest for Everyone" will continue beyond the law's probable passage and possibly field candidates in 2014 municipal elections. She said anyone involved in protest violence would be marginalized, but blamed the government for its failure to listen.

"The violence comes from the way in which this was imposed," Barjot said in an interview Tuesday with France Info radio.

French civil unions, allowed since 1999, are at least as popular among heterosexuals as among gay and lesbian couples. But that law has no provisions for adoption, and the strongest opposition in France comes when children are involved. According to a recent poll just over half of French are opposed to adoption by same-sex couples.

Christophe Crepin, spokesman for the police union UNSA, says the extraordinary security include a total about 4,000 officers surrounding the National Assembly building - most of them anti-riot police- and water cannon positioned nearby.

France would be the 14th country to legalize gay marriage. On the cover of Tuesday's Liberation newspaper, the famed gay photographers Pierre and Gilles took over the front page and several of the inside pages, splashing them with some of their most provocative photos, including one of three soccer players - nude but for the footwear - facing the camera.

In New Zealand, where gay marriage enjoys popular support, people gathered outside Parliament and joined in singing a traditional Maori love ballad after a vote last week making it legal. Nine states and the District of Columbia in the U.S. also recognize such marriages, but the federal government does not.