Noël Mamére, a member of France's parliament and mayor of the Bordeaux suburb of Bégles, conducted the marriage of a gay couple June 5 despite the national government's threats to prosecute him.
Shopworker Bertrand Charpentier, 31, and nurse Stéphane Chapin, 34, arrived at Bégles city hall in a Rolls-Royce to the cheers of gay activists. Two hundred riot police kept the gays and a small number of right-wing protesters from clashing.
Reports described the scene as a 'media frenzy.'
'Your marriage is a first, and I hope it will become something normal,' Mamére told the couple.
'I think the fight I am leading is a political fight ... for the defense of an open society, to combat all forms of discrimination including homophobia,' he told reporters earlier.
Shortly after the wedding, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin launched a 'sanctions procedure' against Mamére. He could be suspended, fired or fined 1,500 euros (US$1,840).
Justice Minister Dominique Perben immediately declared that the couple's marriage would be voided.
If that happens, Charpentier and Chapin have promised an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
'If we have a message to give, it is be like us, be tolerant, love each other and pursue your dreams to the end,' Charpentier told reporters after the wedding, according to Reuters. 'We are going to go and buy a house and get on with our lives.'
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin also denounced the wedding.
'The Civil Code does not allow or authorize the marriage of two people of the same sex,' he said. 'Any elected official who does not respect the law in this respect, who does not respect the Civil Code, lays himself or herself open to the punishments provided for by the law.'
French gays have had access to civil unions, called Civil Solidarity Pacts, since 1999, but the pacts do not carry all the rights of matrimony.
Full marriage is available to same-sex couples only in the Netherlands; Belgium; the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec; and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Canada has no residency requirement for marriage.