For many jurists and feminist groups, the trial of Dominique Pelicot, accused of having drugged his wife to rape her and have her raped, highlights the urgency of changing rape legislation in France.
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The Minister of Justice Didier Migaud, interviewed on France Inter on Friday September 27, said he was in favor of the idea of changing the definition of rape in French law by integrating the notion of consent. Asked whether he was in favor, like President Emmanuel Macron, of including consent in French law, the minister replied: “Yes, yes. It’s very good.”
This notion of consent is at the heart of the debates in the Mazan rape trial. Dominique Pélicot is on trial, with 50 other co-defendants, for having raped and had his wife Gisèle Pélicot raped after drugging her.
During the Mazan rape trial, a defense lawyer went so far as to say that he “There is rape and rape and, without the intention to commit it, there is no rape”. This statement shocked many and reignited the debate on the definition of rape.
Currently, the penal code defines, in article 222-23, rape as “any act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, or any oral-genital act committed on the person of another or on the person of the perpetrator by violence, coercion, threat or surprise”. The notion of consent is not explicitly mentioned there.
Emmanuel Macron said he was in favor last March of changing the definition of rape. The Head of State hoped that a proposed text could see the light of day “by the end of the year”a prospect that became uncertain with the dissolution of the National Assembly which put an end to the work in progress on this subject.