France sets the age of sexual consent at 15 years and declares rape all acts below those years

Maria Laura Avignolo

03/18/2021 15:00

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 03/18/2021 3:00 PM

She is a daughter of the

Duhamel

affair

and its incest, the militancy of the MeToo movement and the end of silence.

A

new French law

was adopted by the National Assembly and considers "as rape the sex between minors of 15 years and adults" in France, after a series of scandals and sexual abuse that shakes the country, in the heat of pandemic.

The age of consent was finally set at 15 years, after the law of August 3, 2018 or the Schiappa law did not clearly establish the age of consent, after long debates with legislators, pediatricians, psychiatrists and sexologists.

The sexual act with a minor under 15 years of age will be penalized in France

with 20 years in prison

if the Constitutional Council, the highest national court, does not challenge it.

The bill had 300 amendments that were discussed but finally the pressure worked: the law passed in one day, voted unanimously, in a historic day and of parliamentary consensus in the French National Assembly.

The legislation went to the Senate for debate and is expected to be approved next April.

At first reading, the Senate had set 13 as the age of consent for the most serious sexual offenses.

Legislation under pressure

The government of Emmanuel Macron was under intense pressure to promote it, after it became known that the abuser

Olivier Duhamel,

professor of Political Science and prestigious French intellectual, was one of his ad honorem advisers and shared in the restaurant La Rotonde the celebrations of his electoral victory.

Until now, in France, a sexual exchange with a minor did not in fact constitute rape (or sexual assault, if there was no penetration), unlike other European legislation.

In Great Britain, the presumption of non-consent exists for those under 13 years of age and in Belgium for those under 14 years of age.

Olivier Duhamel, professor of Political Science and prestigious French intellectual.

Photo: AFP

A 2018 law made French law more rigid and extended the sentence for rape from 20 to 30 years.

But the legislators could

not agree

on an age of consent, which for them should range from 13 to 15 years.

French law established that the 15-year-old sexual majority did not determine a legal age of non-consent, but rather an age below which all sexual acts involving a minor under 15 years of age were illegal.

The issue of consent was outside of that law.

It was a crime but not a crime and the penalties were less severe: they

reached 7 years.

The end of sexual liberation

But the book

La Casa Grande

by Camille, the daughter of French Chancellor Bernard Kouchner, who recounted

the sexual abuse and incest

of her stepfather, scandalized France in the middle of Covid and broke the taboo.

The "attacker" is the famous constitutionalist Olivier Duhamel, and the events took place in his summer home in the Mediterranean with "Víctor", Camille's twin brother.

The author also recounts a series of abuses by model agency owners, actors, and writers on adolescents and minors, including sons and stepdaughters. 

But the book The Big House by Camille Kouchner.

Photo: AFP

The sexual liberation that the "pos 68" or "soixante huit tard"

flew through the air

.

The

“tout Paris”

left the social blindness that had protected Olivier Duhamel and his crimes for more than 30 years, although officially its abuse is prescribed according to French law.

There were at least

100 illustrious people

in France who knew of Duhamel's abuses.

Le Consentement

, Vanesa Springora's book, which denounced the abuse of the writer Gabriel Matzneff, revealed to the general public the secrets of sexual abuse.

One Frenchman in ten

has been the victim of incest, according to the Ipsos poll.

The case forced French lawmakers to list incest as a specific crime, in response to Duhamel's abuses and other cases.

At least

138,000 boys

are sexually abused in France, in an issue that has only just begun to be debated in the country.

In the new legislation, the incest prohibition applies to any sexual relationship between a boy

under the age of 18

and his step-parents.

The political discourse on sexual abuse has changed in France and has moved away from the sexual emancipation of the 70s. One requested by Jean Paul Sartre,

Simone de Beauvoir

, Bernard Kouchner and Olivier Duhamel in Liberation and Le Monde had promoted

the 13 years

as the age of consent, in one requested in 1977. Arguments that today are

morally and legally unthinkable.

This evolution in French society to protect minors comes after the publication of the books by Camille Kouchner and Vanesa Springora, which tell terrifying abuses that were socially permitted in the 80s or 90s. They could not continue denying them or without investigating them.

Abuse or rape?

The challenge for legislators was to characterize the offense and turn it into a serious crime, without trivializing it.

Legislate on the method.

This discreet violence, which prevents the child or young person from resisting or opposing the aggressor.

The threat

is continuous to force them to keep the secret.

Some of them even argue the consent of the child or a

consent of his father

.

These are the dilemmas faced by juvenile judges who try sex crimes.

From establishing a characterized abuse, a simple game, a sexual initiation between minors of the same age or the sexual crime.

"Duhamel and the others will never have peace," says a graffiti in France. Photo: AP

"Boys are off limits!" Said French Justice Minister Eric Dupont Moreti, as he defended the bill before the French National Assembly before Monday's vote!

In November 2017, Emmanuel Macron had spoken in favor of a 15-year limit, but the then justice minister, Nicole Belloubet, preferred the 13-year limit, as did the attorney general, François Molins.

A difference of opinion that is the testimony of a complex dossier, marked by the post-May 68 ideology, the different situations and whether consensual relationships between a child under 14 and over 18 must be penalized.

Magistrates, neuropsychiatrists, childhood specialists and doctors came to the conclusion that the age had to be set at 15 years “because up to that age a reinforced protection is needed due to the deep traces caused by sexual trauma on the structure and the brain function ”, according to the report submitted to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

Under this new legislation, a sexual relationship with a minor under 15 years of age will be penalized with 20 years in prison, unless the age difference between those involved is less.

Romeo and Juliet clause

The new legislation includes the clause “Romeo and Juliet”: it

allows sexual relations between boys

under 15 years of age and

an adult 5 years

older.

Justice Minister Dupond Morettti pictured the case: "I don't want an 18-year-old boy in court because he had a consensual relationship with a 14-and-a-half-year-old girl," he said.

Equality Minister Marléne Schiapa welcomed the legislation and the age of 15 as consent, which was a product of long consultations with specialists and pressure from groups against violence against children.

This will avoid cases like in November 2018, when a court decided that

an 11-year-old victim

had not been subjected to violence, threat or surprise by a man.

In another case, a 28-year-old man faced charges of sexual assault and not rape, after judges found that the victim was not physically forced to have sex.

The same court should have changed the rape charge later.

The great challenge for the law will be the Constitutional Council, the highest court, which must decide on this age of consent and will have its last word.

Paris, correspondent

Look also

"The omerta was the model and explains the silence about incest"

Incest: sexual denunciations and scandal that dot the French left