Gay Luxembourg PM to marry partner

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel is to wed his partner Gauthier Destenay next week, sources said Thursday, just a few months after the tiny duchy legalised same-sex marriage.

Bettel, who became prime minister in 2013 at the age of just 40, has said little about his plans in a bid to minimise press coverage in the tiny, conservative and mostly Roman Catholic duchy.

"He does not want to put his private life in the public spotlight and he has turned down requests from the celebrity magazines to cover the event," one of the sources said.

In August, Bettel said he would marry Destenay, an architect, with whom he has been in a civil union since 2010.

"He asked me and I said 'yes,'" he told the Los Angeles Times.

Centre-right Bettel replaced the now European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker as prime minister in December 2013, ending the grizzled veteran's 19 years of leadership with a promise to modernise the country.

Bettel is currently campaigning to win a June 7 referendum on a series of reforms, including limiting the premier's term to 10 years and cutting the voting age to 16 years.