The French parliament has ratified an amendment to add consent to the legal definition of sexual assault and rape law.
Previously, rape or sexual abuse in France had been defined as 'any form of sexual penetration committed with the use of violence, coercion, threat or surprise'. Now, the law will say that all sexual acts done to another without consent constitute rape.
The change is the result of a cross-party, years-long debate which gained renewed urgency after last year's Pelicot rape trial, in which 50 men were found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she had been drugged unconscious by her husband Dominique.
The defence of many of the accused hinged on the fact they could not be guilty of rape because they were unaware Ms Pelicot was not in a position to give her consent. Some defence lawyers in the Pelicot case had therefore argued that there could be no crime without the intention to commit it.
The new bill will make this argument more tenuous, as it says that consent must be 'free and informed, specific, prior and revocable', and that it cannot be inferred from 'silence or lack of reaction'.
'There is no consent if the sexual act is committed through violence, coercion, threat or surprise, whatever their nature,' it states.
The two MPs who drafted the amendment - the Greens' Marie-Charlotte Garin and centrist Véronique Riotton - stated that a 'historic victory' had been achieved and hailed 'a major step forward in the fight against sexual violence'.
Some critics argued that the amendment could lead to a situation where sexual relations become contractual, while others feared that it might burden victims to prove non-consent. However, France's highest administrative court, the Council of State (Conseil d'État), endorsed the amendment, asserting it would clearly articulate the need for personal and sexual freedom protections.
The initial version was adopted by the National Assembly in April. Its progression was delayed by political turmoil, but on Wednesday, the Senate definitively adopted the bill with 327 votes in favor and 15 abstentions, after which it received final approval from parliament.
Greens senator Mélanie Vogel previously argued that while society had accepted that consent demarcates sex from rape, criminal law had lagged behind. 'This is a historic step forward, following in the footsteps of several other European countries,' remarked Lola Schulmann, an advocacy officer at Amnesty International France.
Countries like Sweden, Germany, and Spain already have laws that emphasize consent in sexual violence cases.
