WHAT ABOUT PACS?

Speaking of Monsieur Bean and of marriage, the question of PACS popped up in my head!
For those of you not familiar with the term, it is a form of civil union between two adults of the same or opposite sex possible in France. When it was first introduced in 1999 it solely concerned homosexual couples, but was quickly adopted by heterosexuals who did not wish to marry but wanted to benefit from some of the privileges such as filing joint income tax. Among a number of benefits it also allowed the occasionally foreign significant other to obtaining a specific visa (vie privée et familiale ) that allowed him/her to reside and work in France legally. Naturally, in sync with the infamous French bureaucracy all of this required a mind boggling amount of time, proof and paper work, but in the end it gave the foreign part of the whole a certain amount of possibilities and rights. Now with Monsieur Sarkozy, aka Monsieur Bean, in power who knows what will become of le PACS? How strict will the rules and regulations become? How long will foreign lovers have to wait for their visas? Will it even survive the reign of terror?

Here are a couple more blurbs on the subject:

http://fr.wikipedia.org

http://en.wikipedia.org