On September 2, the trial of Dominique Pélicot and the 50 other defendants of having raped his now ex-wife, Gisèle Pelicot. A process which monopolizes media interest, in France and beyond its borders, largely thanks to the victim’s desire to be celebrated in front of the public and the press. Thus, the media coverage of the case sparks a debate in French society on rape culture and the shortcomings of the judicial system in matters of sexual and gender violence.
That same week, Gisèle Pelicot testified a second time in order to speak after the presentation of evidence. “I am a destroyed woman and I don’t know how I’m going to get back up,” she said after the testimony of the main accused, her husband. The victim, who insisted that the hearings be public, told the court: “I appreciate you giving me the floor, because for eight weeks I have felt hurt.
Low percentage of complaints
In France, only 6% of victims of sexual assault report the facts and only 0.6% of reported rapes or attempted rapes result in a conviction. “The figures for sexual and gender-based violence in the country are alarming and reveal the extent of this social phenomenon,” he denounced that same year. International amnesty (AI).
The organization also pointed out that when victims decide to come forward, they often face questions of blame from police, prosecutors and judges; to the minimization of the seriousness of the events or to a reversal of responsibility for the attack, which places the emphasis on the victim rather than the accused. “Today, rape victims who obtain justice do so only after a long and painful battle. The culture of rape must give way to the culture of consent,” concludes AI.
Same diagnosis from the Council of Europe, which had already published a report in 2019 accusing France of providing an insufficient criminal response to violence against women in general and to its definition of rape in particular, because “it is not based on lack of consent, but requires the use of violence, coercion, threat or surprise.
Consent
That of consent and its possible inclusion in legislation is one of the questions that emerges most in the debates around the Pelicot affair. “Today in France, there are very few complaints for rape that result in a conviction,” confirms Carole Hardouin-Le Goff, professor of private law and criminal sciences at the University of Paris-II-Panthéon-Assas and director of studies at the Institute of Criminology. . and Paris Criminal Law. “Many are archived because there is a lack of information to establish the facts. If we enshrined in the law that rape is a sexual relationship not consensual by the victim, this would oblige the aggressor to ensure that the victim consents before committing the act.
The lawyer also points out that this would be a particularly useful element in cases where victims are incapacitated, such as chemical submission. “This is what we see in the Pelicot affair, where we find defendants who say that she agreed; “who said nothing, therefore he consented.” When in reality, we know that he was in a state close to a coma.
The alleged culprits
The high rate of rape complaints filed without trial contrasts with the fact that, unlike other crimes, in the case of rape the alleged attacker is identified in a high percentage of cases. This also contrasts with the increase in the number of complaints recorded over the past decade, according to a study by the Public Policy Institutewhich analyzed data from French courts between 2012 and 2021.
“The data shows that complaints of violence committed against women over the period have increased considerably,” explains Maëlle Stricot, doctoral student at the Paris School of Economics, affiliated with the Institute of Public Policies and author of the study. . “A particularly pronounced growth after 2017, the year of #MeToo and testimonies on the harassment and sexual assault suffered by millions of women.”
The study also highlights that when there is a desire to improve the situation, efforts have an impact. And he gives the example of the fight against domestic violence, which has been the subject of legislation and specific provisions in France. Thus, the dismissal rate decreased from 76% in 2016 to 67% in 2020, while in the same period the number of violations increased from 82% in 2012 to 94%.
This increase is also linked to the fact that, in many cases of sexual violence, the complaint comes years after the facts. “In the statistics, we see that the average number of days between the time of the events and the arrival of the case in court has increased; the victims seem to be talking about older events,” says Maëlle Stricot.
This is why different feminist voices also put on the table the need to expand legal tools. On the one hand, develop the principle of serialitywhich today allows investigators to use past events during the investigation, even if they are prescribed, when they correspond to the same author. Some associations and jurists believe that it could be extended beyond investigations and open the door to also suspending limitation periods for judging events dating back decades.
In this sense, they recall the law to fight against violence against minors approved in France in 2021 which introduces the principle of sliding prescription (sliding prescription): when the same attacker commits a new act, the limitation period is shifted to the date of the most recent act.
Pedagogy and prevention
Experts say the current legal definition of rape largely corresponds to a stereotypical idea, an attack carried out with violence by a stranger. However, this does not respond to a large part of the legal reality, since 90% of victims of sexual violence know their attacker. In many cases, the lack of evidence or physical consequences, either because a lot of time has passed or because the violence or coercion was not physical, often means that they are never tried .
Currently, investigations focus on consolidating the victim’s statements and not on the behavior or background of the perpetrator. And experts point out that enshrining consent in the law would give more weight to the alleged perpetrator and the demonstration that the other person accepted the relationship and less to the victim.
“It is important that every citizen understands what rape is and they will be better off if we enshrine in law that rape is sexual intercourse without the consent of either party. There is a dimension that is both educational and preventive,” explains Carole Hardouin-Le Goff. “By basing the crime of rape not on the use of coercion but on the absence of consent, the Penal Code would unambiguously proclaim that any sexual relationship requires the free agreement of the parties. »
However, this idea is not supported by the entire feminist community. The philosopher Manon García stood on a platform at The World that if the legal definition of rape is based on the absence of consent we risk “considering that it is the behavior of the victim which creates the rape and not that of the rapist. We expose the victim to scrutiny – “how could she not consent to the short skirt she was wearing?” » – and pressure throughout the legal process, rather than focusing on the behavior of the accused.
“In the world of law, there are jurists who see things this way,” recognizes Hardouin-Le Goff. “But in criminal law, we analyze the behavior of the aggressor. And if we enshrine consent in the law, we will be able to verify whether the attacker ensured that he had the victim’s consent. But always focusing on the attacker.
Gisèle Halimi and the great judgments of feminism
This is why associations like Women’s Foundation They prefer to opt for “comprehensive legislation” which goes further, “which clarifies the definition of rape and consent” but which “also introduces a legal definition of incest, which prosecutes serial rapists for all known violations, which expands protection orders in cases of rape. victims, which make it easier to obtain evidence, which create specialized brigades, which prohibit investigating the sexual past of victims…
They also demand that immediate and free access to psycho-traumatological care be allowed and that economic resources be granted to this public policy and to the associations which support it.
In the context of the Avignon trial, two landmark trials are cited as examples of moments that constituted a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in France. In 1972, the so-called Bobigny trial, where five women were tried for having had an abortion: a minor, Marie-Claire Chevalier – who aborted after being raped – and four adults, including her mother.
His lawyer Gisèle Halimi, who is an icon of the feminist struggle in France, managed to ensure that the trial did not focus on the defendants, but on the repressive law in force at the time. A political process which demonstrated the obsolescence of the French penal code and encouraged public authorities to change the law. Three years later, the Veil law was promulgated in France, which decriminalized the voluntary termination of pregnancy.
Halimi was also a lawyer in another major legal case, that of two young Belgian women (Anne Tonglet and Araceli Castellano) raped by three men in a cove near Marseille in 1974. The work of Gisèle Halimi and the tenacity of the victims – stigmatized during the trial for lesbians and the practice of naturism – allowed the case to reach the criminal court in 1978, a highly publicized trial. In 1980, France adopted a new law regarding rape.
On March 8, President Emmanuel Macron declared for the first time in favor of enshrining consent in French law. A parliamentary commission was launched shortly after to develop the legislation, but the dissolution of the National Assembly in June put an end to this initiative. Faced with the possibility of reactivating legislative initiatives on the issue, the new Minister of Justice also declared on September 27 be in favor of the measure.
