Sexist outrages: the Assembly votes to toughen sanctions

The National Assembly voted this Wednesday evening in favor of tougher repression of sexist insults and the possibility of filing complaints by videoconference for certain offenses, during the examination of the orientation and programming law of the Ministry of Interior.

Sexist contempt, introduced recently to deal with "street harassment" in particular, refers to the fact of imposing on a person "a statement or behavior with a sexual or sexist connotation", undermining their dignity or creating an "intimidating" situation. , hostile or offensive”.

It is considered "aggravated" in certain cases, for example when it is committed by a person abusing his authority, on a vulnerable person or even in public transport.

The article voted on Wednesday aims to make it a crime, with a fine that would increase from 1,500 euros currently to 3,750 euros.

The criminal offenses concerned must be specified by a decree of the Council of State.

Identical amendments from the oppositions were adopted, with the backing of the government, to extend the aggravated sexist contempt to all minors, and no longer just to those under 15 years old.

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Other amendments, which called for sexist outrages not to be the subject of “delictual lump sum fines” of lower amounts, were rejected.

The LFI group voted against the measure, deploring a purely “repressive” method and believing that it was necessary to “address the cause and not the consequence” of these outrages.

Video complaints soon possible

Earlier in the day, the Assembly voted largely in favor of a possible filing of a complaint by videoconference for certain offenses, by 155 votes against 2. In the hemicycle, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had praised Tuesday the one of the “digital revolutions” of the ministry, when certain victims have to “take half a day off” to file a complaint today.

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With the endorsement of the presidential camp, the deputies adopted an amendment by the socialist Cécile Untermaier mentioning that the victim can refuse the videoconference, if she prefers a “face-to-face” procedure.

Videoconferencing is not intended to “reduce public service”, underlined Renaissance MP Caroline Abadie, recalling the “8,500 recruitments” of gendarmes and police promised by law during the five-year term.

The deputies adopted a socialist proposal so that a victim of a criminal offense can “ask to file a complaint and be heard” within “his home, a specialized association for helping victims or any other place”.

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An amendment by Marie Pochon (EELV), providing for a possible five-year experiment with "brigades of gendarmes and mobile police officers" to "collect complaints from victims of domestic violence in rural areas, in areas determined by decree", was also adopted against the opinion of the rapporteur.