Paperwork will refer to “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” rather than “mother” and “father”

The French parliament has voted to banish the words “mother” and “father” from official paperwork in the education system to tackle discrimination against gay parents.

Children’s documents will instead refer to Parent 1 and Parent 2. The move has angered conservatives and Christians who argue that it signals the country’s moral decline.

Groups fiercely opposed to gay marriage have called for civil disobedience if, as is widely expected, the move is approved by the Senate. Traditionalists claim that the next move will be to delete the words mother and father from the French language.

MPs from President Macron’s République en Marche party passed the legal amendment in the interests of “anchoring in the diversity of families of children in the law”. Gay marriage became legal