Statistics for 2009 showed 250,000 marriages in France and 173,045 registrations of a pacte civil de solidarité (PACS).  France allows both opposite-sex and same-sex couples to enter a PACS, and 95 percent of the newPACS registered in 2009 were between opposite-sex couples.  See Scott  Sayare and Maïa De la Baume, In France, Civil Unions Gain Favor Over Marriage (N.Y. Times, Dec. 15, 2010).