法國里昂男子成首位隨妻姓的丈夫

法國里昂一名37歲的男子日前用妻子的姓氏取代了自己原來的姓，成爲法國第一位隨妻姓的丈夫。據悉，這名男子於今年9月成婚，在最終改換姓氏之前曾被行政部門拒絕了7次，因爲這些部門並沒有意識到法國於2011年頒佈了一部性別平等法，允許丈夫隨妻姓。他從政府網站下載並打印了該法律條文後才獲准改換成妻子的姓氏。這名男子表示，想改成妻子的法語姓氏是因爲自己的土耳其姓氏很難發音，以致於找工作都有困難。最終，工作人員將他的姓氏和妻子的姓氏結合成一個複姓給他。

A husband from Lyon has become the first man in France to take his wife's surname under a new gender equality law.

But the 37-year-old, who married in September, first had to cross an administrative minefield with his request rejected seven times because officials were unaware the law existed.

He said he finally had to print a copy of the law from a government website before he could be renamed.

"I contacted seven town halls, they all turned me down. They checked several times the boxes they could tick on their computer systems and said it was simply impossible to change it to my wife's," he told RTL radio.

The man from Lyon – named only as Philippe S – said he wanted to use his wife's French-sounding surname because his own Turkish one was hard to pronounce and made it difficult to find work.

But the civil servants could only offer him a double-barrelled name merging his current one plus his wife's.

"I needed my wife's name to be able to get ahead in life, not constantly get knock-backs, and I feel things are improving already," he said.

The change in the law was published in the French government's Official Journal in October 2011, but received little media attention.