End of the ban on blood donation by gay men
After a 33-year ban: from 11 July 2016, gay and bisexual men in France were allowed to give blood again, with conditions.
On 11 July 2016, a decree came into force in France that allowed gay and bisexual men to give blood again for the first time in more than three decades.
Since 1983, an administrative instruction from the Ministry of Health had excluded men who have sex with men from donating blood across the board. The reason was the fear of HIV transmission in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when reliable tests were not yet available. Even after detection methods improved greatly, the ban remained in place for decades and was increasingly criticised as discriminatory by human rights organisations.
A first political step came on 3 April 2015, when the National Assembly unanimously passed an amendment to the public health law: no one could be excluded from donating blood on the grounds of their sexual orientation. Health Minister Marisol Touraine then announced a gradual opening. The order of 5 April 2016 redefined the selection criteria for blood and plasma donations; they came into force on 11 July 2016.
The opening still came with strict conditions, however: men were only allowed to give blood if they had not had sex with a man for at least twelve months; for plasma donations the period was four months. LGBT associations welcomed the step as overdue but sharply criticised the remaining unequal treatment compared with heterosexual donors. The deferral period for blood donations was shortened to four months in 2020, and since 2022 the same criteria have applied to all donors regardless of sexual orientation.