France should update its rape law to add a clear reference to consent, a parliamentary report has found, months after French society was shaken by the trial of 51 men over the repeated drugging and rape of Gisèle Pelicot.
The report, to be presented on Tuesday, said action must be taken urgently to update the law. “Almost 10 years after the start of the #MeToo movement, and as the [Pelicot] trial showed once again, the fight against rape culture must be a priority: the fight against rape culture needs a law that is clearer,” it found.
Two MPs – Véronique Riotton from Emmanuel Macron’s centrist group, Ensemble pour la République, and Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green who is part of the left alliance, New Popular Front – have worked since 2023 to produce recommendations for adding a consent-based definition of rape to French law.
Their work began before the biggest rape trial in French history in which Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and 50 other men were found guilty in December after she was drugged and raped while unconscious in her home.
The MPs proposed that a consent-based definition of rape be added to the existing wording of the French law, which defines rape as any penetrative act committed against someone using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise”. It makes no clear mention of the need for a partner’s consent.
The MPs said they wanted a bill to be brought before parliament that would change the law – keeping the current wording but adding in a reference to any “non-consenting” penetrative act.
Their report said stereotypes still existed in society of supposedly “good victims” and “real rape” and too many of those accused were able to say they “didn’t know” the person they assaulted had not consented.
Consent-based rape law already exists in Sweden, Germany, Spain and more than a dozen other European countries.
During the Pelicot trial, the court heard how Dominique Pelicot, a 72-year-old retired electrician and estate agent, had crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.
Dozens of the accused men denied rape in court, despite video evidence against them, saying they thought it was a game and that she had consented. One man said he had learned what “consent” meant only when he was in prison awaiting trial. Others said they thought they had obtained consent, by means of Gisèle Pelicot’s husband.
In Gisèle Pelicot’s final statement to the criminal court in Avignon before judges began deliberating, she said: “It’s time that the macho, patriarchal society that trivialises rape changes … It’s time we changed the way we look at rape.”
The parliament report said there should be an acknowledgment that consent was specific to an act, given freely and could be withdrawn at any moment.
The report said lack of consent must also be considered within the broader circumstances of an alleged rape, in order to focus more on the accused than the victim.
The MPs said a “climate of impunity” persisted in France in terms of sexual violence. While a change to the wording of the law would “not be enough on its own” to combat the difficulties of victims in getting a case prosecuted and obtaining justice, they said, it could be one of the building blocks in a “paradigm shift” being called for by feminist groups, professionals and public opinion.
There must also be more resources put into the legal system and into the “fight against rape culture”, the MPs said.
During the Pelicot trial, there was debate in France on adding the notion of consent to French rape laws. Some in the legal system argued against it, saying that what was instead needed was better funding and training in the justice system. Some said that adding the notion of consent could put the focus and scrutiny on victims’ actions and words, not attackers.
In recent years, several French ministers have spoken in favour of adding the notion of consent to French law.
“I totally understand that consent should be enshrined [in the law],” the president, Emmanuel Macron, told a women’s right group last year.
Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter, Caroline Darian, this week stepped up her campaign to raise awareness on drugging and drug-facilitated rape with her organisation Don’t Put me Under (#MendorsPas).
“I realised very quickly that the scourge of chemical submission was a major concern in society and a major health issue that was invisible,” she told France 2 TV before the broadcast on Tuesday night of a documentary she took part in. The film interviewed several survivors who spoke of their experiences of blackouts after being drugged and assaulted.
“There are no statistics on the number of victims, but it’s probably thousands – and not just in festive places [bars or festivals] but mostly in the domestic sphere and within families,” Darian said.
Testimony in the film includes a 15-year-old girl who was drugged and abused by her father, who crushed medication into the fruit yoghurt she would eat before bed. Analysis of her hair was able to show the drugging had continued for years.
Darian said drugging happened “in all walks of life”, and survivors had to fight to produce proof. She said she was now campaigning to improve prevention of the crime, and to encourage survivors to speak out.
