France taken to court over no-sex rule for gay blood donors

A Frenchman has gone to the European Court of Human Rights to try and overturn rules seen by many homosexuals as discriminatory that require gay men to have no sex for a year before they can donate blood.

If Europe's top rights court rules in his favour, it could set a precedent for other European countries such as Britain that have blood deferral periods for gay people.

Laurent Drelon, 48, decided to lodge his complaint with the court after he was prevented from giving blood several times since he first tried in 2004.

"This is the first time that the ECHR (the court) will make a decision on whether French legislation is discriminatory or not," said Mr Drelon's lawyer, Patrice Spinosi.

Gay men were prohibited from giving blood in France in 1983 over fears about the spread of HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

The rule was lifted in 2016, but under the new rules gay men would first have to promise at an interview at a blood donation centre that they had not had sexual relations for the previous 12 months.

Last year France’s top court rejected a lawsuit taken by four associations to have that deferral period scrapped.

Mr Drelon argues in his case to the Strasbourg-based rights court that the deferral period is discriminatory on the basis of sexuality, and that it also violates his right to privacy by forcing him to reveal his sexual history.

The abstinence rule "is based solely on a person's sex and sexual orientation... and violates the right to privacy" as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, his lawyer said.

Britain recently relaxed similar rules for blood donations by gay men to allow them to donate three months after their last sexual encounter. The change followed advances in screening and a better understanding of HIV.

Ireland last year ended its lifetime ban on men who have had sex with men from donating blood and introduced a deferral period of one year.

In France, people who have lived in Britain or Ireland for more than a year between 1980 and 1996 are not allowed to give blood because a theoretical risk of transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow disease.”