They are called Sylvia, Claire or Cecile. In an issue of “Special Envoy”, broadcast on Thursday, November 25, they accused Nicolas Hulot of sexual assault or pointed “a dysfunction in his relations with women”. Although the facts seem time-barred, the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary investigation for “rape” and “sexual assault”.
Faced with these testimonies, the former Minister of Ecological Transition described these statements as “lies”. A line of defense that recalls that of another very media man: Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. For several months, women accuse the ex-presenter of the “8 pm” of sexual assault and rape, evoking a “domination scheme”. After the classification without follow-up in June of the investigation for “rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment” targeting the journalist, the writer Florence Porcel filed Thursday a new complaint with the constitution of civil party, automatically leading to the opening of a judicial investigation.
Franceinfo spoke with Alice Debauche, lecturer in sociology at the University of Strasbourg. A specialist in sexual violence issues, she is also co-responsible for the “Violence and Gender Relations” survey.
Franceinfo: Can we observing any similarities between the Nicolas Hulot and PPDA cases?
Alice Debauche: What seems to me to be similar to listening to the testimony relating to these two cases is the context. We are in a public labor relations framework. By definition, we are not in a context of seduction. Women therefore do not expect to find themselves in this situation at all, they are surprised, flabbergasted. It is an extremely common mechanism, including in domestic sexual violence.
“Some men, who are in a position of power, whether in the family or in the professional context, overflow what they imagine to be linked to their power on questions of sexuality.”
Alice Debaucheto franceinfo
They therefore believe that their power gives them sexual rights over the women around them.
On the sidelines of the PPDA or Nicolas Hulot business, it has sometimes been said that “everyone knew” in the circles where these personalities revolve. How to explain that it seems to reign a form of omerta in these spheres?
In my opinion, the theme of silence is specific to all cases of sexual violence. In particular when the aggressors are identifiable and nominable by their victims. The only thing left for them to protect themselves is to guarantee silence, especially that of the victims, by making them perceive the risks they run in speaking. The victims quickly integrate that they probably have more to lose by talking than by keeping silent.
The aggressors also ensure the silence around them. That of colleagues or other members of the family, depending on the context, who may ask questions … The silence of those around them is linked to the position of power of the aggressors. This entourage is in a way dependent on the status of the aggressor. These people know that they risk being splashed, questioned, if ever that is known.
“For everyone, it appears that the price to pay for speaking out is greater than maintaining silence.”
Alice Debaucheto franceinfo
Once taken in this system of silence set up by the aggressor, it is very difficult to get out, whether for the victims or for those around them. If we talk, we risk being reproached for not having done so sooner.
Cases of sexual violence often arise after the statute of limitations. Besides the “silence system” that you have described, can other reasons explain phy do victims need time to express themselves?
Social representations around sexuality, power, masculinity and femininity tend to empower victims. Women have fully integrated it. They anticipate that if they speak, we will blame them for their behavior. If they do not speak immediately, we will point out that they certainly have something to be ashamed of.
In my opinion, these are the explanations in sociological terms. Other approaches will put forward explanations linked to cognitive and psychic functioning in terms of astonishment: the fact of dissociating oneself, of not realizing what has happened … It is therefore a set of mechanisms which explains why women do not. do not speak right away.
Faced with the accusations, PPDA and Nicolas Hulot respectively denounced a “fabrication” and “false” claims. How to analyze this defense strategy?
This is the exact symmetry of the mechanism observed in the victims. Respondents are fully aware of the social representations that empower victims. They therefore have every interest in playing on it. From the moment the rape or aggression occurs, we will build a set of doubts about the reality of the rape or the reality of the absence of consent.
Behind the questioning of“fabrications” or from “lies”, we send a message that says that if these women make accusations, it is to put themselves forward, so that we talk about them. This is extremely classic rhetoric, found in a very old fashioned way in sources on sexual violence, and which works even better when men are in positions of power.
The rhetoric of the accused also appears to be based on a reversal of the position of victim. Nicolas Hulot for example considered to be condemned to a “social death”. Is this a frequent posture in these cases?
It is, in a way, the only tenable position. Either we make the victims responsible and it is therefore the person targeted by the accusations who becomes the victim, or we deny the reality of the violence and we come back to the question of “fabrications” and “false accusations”. Respondents therefore have two strategies, denial and accountability, and they have it both ways.
Besides, it’s quite interesting to see this inversion of the victim position. Until the years 1970-1980, the“social death” is what awaited rape victims. Those who spoke publicly were stigmatized, ostracized from society. TOToday, if we look at it in statistical terms, it is still the victims who pay the consequences of breaking the silence. But maybe aare we at the beginning of a reversal where the aggressors would have to pay more when their victims came out of silence than the reverse. This is what feminist associations have been waiting for for years, as illustrated by the slogan “Shame must change sides”.
Nicolas Hulot joked about his physique “very ungrateful”, adding “that therefore only the constraint [lui] allows you to experience love stories “. His words suggest the existence of a link between the appearance and the mechanics of sexual violence, even a “profile” of the rapist or the aggressor. What is it really ?
Researchers are generally unanimous in saying that there is no profile of the rapist or the aggressor. On the side of psychology and psychiatry work, there is a great diversity of psychological and social profiles.
“What suggest [les propos de Nicolas Hulot]is that rape and sexual assault have to do with sexuality and hypothetical male sexual urges or needs. It is a way of relieving the aggressors of responsibility, in a way, which is extremely problematic. “
Alice Debaucheto franceinfo
In fact, there are two completely different spaces. There is consensual sex and seduction. And then, in terms of sexual violence, there is the imposition of a patriarchal power, of domination over women which would [les hommes] would have the right to assault or rape with impunity.
The men involved also regularly criticize the use of the media as a channel for the victims to speak out. But isn’t the media coverage of such cases necessary to fight against this violence and allow other victims to speak in turn?
Each time that cases are in the media, there is indeed an increase in testimonies, speeches and, to a certain extent, but less systematically, the filing of complaints. THESeeing someone speak out publicly on these issues gives some form of permission for other victims to speak out. A feeling of authorization to speak.
This is exactly what happened with the #MeToo movement. The same mechanism is also found in the 1990s, when rare television programs were devoted to sexual violence. In my research, I relied on the archives of the listening number SOS Viols Femmes Informations *. In the 1990s and 2000s, we thus observed peaks in calls each time a prime time program, broadcast on a major channel, raised these questions.
If the victims express themselves in the media space, is it not also because the judicial management of these cases is not sufficiently adapted?
The first level that comes into play, whether in the PPDA and Nicolas Hulot cases or more generally, is the question of prescription. When the facts are prescribed **, if a victim wants to be heard, there are not many spaces left other than the media arena. One of the triggers for speaking out, even if the facts are prescribed, is often the fear that there will be other victims.
“There is therefore a dimension of protection of possible other victims which cannot be left only to the judicial space because, very often, there is this question of prescription.”
Alice Debauchefranceinfo
But, even without the issue of prescription, there is a set of representations of the work of justice. – not all wrong – which make victims tend to think that filing a complaint will not be useful, that they will not be believed, or even that it will backfire on them.
Four years after the launch of the #MeToo movement, is the voice of victims generally better heard and received within society?
On the PPDA and Nicolas Hulot cases, we still lack perspective. However, oWe are witnessing mechanisms of political abandonment which would suggest that it would have become a little more costly for those around them to continue defending aggressors than to distance oneself from them.
In the minutes that followed the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair [accusé de viol en 2011 par Nafissatou Diallo, alors employée d’un hôtel Sofitel à New York], the political class had rushed to defend it. There, this is not what we observe. This is an indication that suggests that the words of victims are indeed better heard and better received today.
It is also necessary to underline the quality of the journalistic work which was carried out [dans l’affaire Nicolas Hulot par “Envoyé spécial” et dans l’affaire PPDA par Libération et Le Monde]. Giving a voice to several victims gives them great credit.
* This free and anonymous helpline, managed by the Feminist Collective Against Rape, is available Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., on 0 800 05 95 95.
** The statute of limitations is twenty years for rape of an adult and thirty years from the age of majority of the victim for rape of a minor. For sexual assault, the time limit is six years if the acts were committed against an adult, twenty years after the victim has reached the age of majority for acts committed against a minor under the age of 15, and ten years later. the majority of the victim for acts committed on a minor between 15 and 18 years old.