While France refused to support the definition of rape based on the absence of consent at the European level at the end of 2023, LFI announced on Tuesday that it would table a bill aimed at integrating the term “consent” into the definition. criminal law for rape in France.
Like an air of distrust in the National Assembly. LFI MP for Paris Sarah Legrain announced, Tuesday February 6, 2024, that La France insoumise was going to table a bill whose objective is to integrate the notion of consent into the criminal definition of rape and sexual assault offenses . For the rebels, we must remedy the too numerous “classifications without follow-up today in France, in particular cases of astonishment, dissociation or control”. And this involves a review of the current definition of rape and its interpretation, relays Provence.
Denouncing the “French failures in the treatment of sexual violence”, La France insoumise wishes to concretely integrate the term consent, which “cannot be deduced from the simple absence of resistance of the victim”, in article 222-23 of the penal code relating to the definition of rape. If a similar proposal had previously been tabled by environmentalist senator Mélanie Vogel a few months ago, this new bill seems to speak out against the position taken by Emmanuel Macron for France at the European level at the end of 2023.
Last November, as part of the discussion of the Twenty-Seven concerning the directive on the fight against violence against women and domestic violence, Paris was in fact one of those who opposed a common definition of rape. Definition which was to be based on the notion of… consent. As the Commission then proposed, the fact that the victim “did not consent to the sexual act” should then be sufficient to characterize the “crime of rape”, recalls The world. An ultra-sensitive subject. Emmanuel Macron’s decision to oppose harmonization on a European scale had also led to a dissociation of some 23 MEPs from the majority, who had publicly denounced the president’s position, recalls for his part the HuffPost.