PARIS: A French appeals court has rejected a Muslim man's demand to 'erase' his marriage with an annulment because his wife was not a virgin as he had believed.

The court has backed the arguments of women's rights activists and government lawyers that a woman's virginity is not an 'essential personal quality'.

Even if the woman had lied about her past love life, the court said in a ruling late on Monday, that would not in effect nullify the marriage.

As a result, the couple's marriage was reinstated although they have never lived together.

Annulments are relatively rare in France - only a few dozen a year - and are supposed to be granted only in the event of a misrepresentation about a spouse's identity or an 'essential quality of a person'.

Unlike divorce, an annulment means the marriage never existed in the eyes of the law.

The case caused a furore in the country in May, when it was first revealed that a magistrate in the northern city of Lille had granted the couple's request to annul their July 2006 marriage.

The lower court said that the woman had 'acquiesced' to the man's demand to marry him 'based on a lie concerning her virginity'.

That decision was condemned as sexist and degrading to women.

One government minister described it as 'a fatwa against the emancipation of women'.

Justice Minister Rachida Dati - the first person of North African origin to hold a top government post in France - had at first defended the annulment, noting it came at the request of both parties. But after facing criticism during a parliamentary debate in early June, she asked state prosecutors to appeal the original ruling, leading to Monday's ruling.

The state's lawyers argued that an annulment would violate principles of equality and a woman's right to control her own body.

While neither the lower court nor the appeals court specifically mentioned religion as an issue, it was a prominent subtext to the controversy.

It was also widely seen as an example of French law bowing to the customs of orthodox Islam.

France is a fiercely secular country that insists that minorities adapt to its culture.

Earlier this year, an administrative court denied French citizenship to a North African Muslim woman who wears a full face-covering veil.

It said her 'radical' Muslim practice showed that she had not integrated with French values.

The annulment case raised similar concerns that religious customs practised in private were being sanctioned by the state.

A group of 150 members of the European Parliament said in a petition sent in June that an annulment 'would comfort fundamentalists'.

Other critics said that annulling the marriage would send the message to women that their virginity before marriage counts in French law.

The couple have not been identified by name, but the husband is said to be a computer engineer. The wife was a nursing student at the time of the marriage.

Both come from Moroccan immigrant families.

The husband claimed that his wife revealed just after the wedding that she had had prior sexual relations with other men.

He then denounced her to both their families as the celebrations were still going on.

He felt deceived about his wife's 'chastity' and considered that a character flaw, according to his lawyer, Mr Xavier Labbee.

The husband did not want a divorce because he wanted to 'erase' any trace of the marriage, Mr Labbee said.

The wife initially went along with her husband's demand for an annulment.

But when the case went to the appeals court, her lawyer asked that the husband pay damages for having 'humiliated' her before their families.

Their lawyers said both spouses still wanted to end what they considered a meaningless marriage, but had hoped to avoid the divorce court.

Mr Labbee, representing the husband, said the appeals court's refusal to uphold the annulment 'threatens our individual liberties' and effectively authorised the state to 'control souls and consciences'.

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