In what is said to be his strongest comment on the issue, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday called for the country’s same-sex marriage laws to be scrapped.

More than 7,000 same-sex marriages have been celebrated in France in 2013 since it was made legal since May 2013, according to a RFI report in January 2014. Numbers for same-sex marriages in 2014 is not known.

AFP reports that the former president, who has embarked on a political comeback, was pushed to make those comments when he spoke at an event in Paris on Saturday where three candidates were in a bid to lead the centre-right main opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party into the 2017 presidential election.

He was quoted as saying that the same-sex marriage law which also allows for adoption ‘should be rewritten from the ground up.’

When his remarks were met by chants of ‘Repeal! Repeal!’ by audience members, he made it clearer, ‘If you prefer that I say repeal the law… it comes down to the same thing.’

He had earlier called for same-sex marriage laws, which has sparked massive street protests, to be ‘rewritten’ but not to be scrapped.

In July 2014, Sarkozy was criminally charged with corruption and influence peddling by French authorities. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

According to an Ifop poll published Saturday, 68 percent of the French were in favor of same-sex unions, and 53 percent supported adoption by homosexual couples.

Same-sex marriage is part of Sarkozy’s successor Socialist President Francois Hollande’s key social reform policy since being elected in May 2012.