“The bottom of the problem” in cases of sexual violence is “the fear, the shame, the feeling of guilt, the culture of rape and the male domination which weighs on all women”, reacted on franceinfo Maître Élodie Tuaillon-Hibon, criminal lawyer specializing in cases of sexual violence, after the Paris prosecutor’s office announced Friday, November 26 the opening of a preliminary investigation for facts of “rape” and “sexual assault” including is accused Nicolas Hulot. This follows the broadcast of an investigation Thursday evening during the special Envoy show, on France 2. “Shame and fear must change sides”, she says.
franceinfo: Does this case raise the question of prescription?
Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon: Yes and no. Yes, as long as the facts were quite old for the most part, the statute of limitations was still quite short at the time, which was a problem. She has come a long way since then, which is a very good thing, because today she is twenty to thirty years old for crimes depending on the age of the victim. But we can do even better, especially for everything that is criminal, that is to say, sexual harassment and sexual assault, because she is currently six years old. That being said, the subject of the prescription is still a bit the tree that hides the forest since the root of the problem in history is still the state of society. The fact that young women can say to each other – and I fully understand them – “I am 16 years old, who will believe me against Nicolas Hulot given that he is Jacques Chirac’s intimate friend?” really heartbroken. This is what must be changed. Shame and fear must change sides. We will be able to lengthen all the prescriptions in the world, but if this remains in the hearts of the victims, it will not change.
Are you saying that what you heard last night was the fear of not being believed, that the situation would be more difficult in speaking than in remaining silent?
Of course, and that’s what I hear in my office ten times a day. Justice can also do a lot of things, starting by reforming itself and getting rid of the sexist prejudices that still too frequently innervate the reasoning of magistrates or police officers responsible for investigating.
Is there a real difficulty for justice today in dealing with these very often old cases, without witnesses, which regularly boil down to a “word against word”?
It does not often come down to “word for word”. My experience in the files leads me to say that this is not the case at all. There is always evidence, direct or indirect, testimony, a whole bunch of things. It is true that the more time passes, the more difficult it is to harvest them. We also hear this fear of “word against word” on the part of the victims, but these are false ideas. This is completely normal [qu’elles pensent ainsi] since these are the ideas that society peddles all day long: “There were no witnesses so it will be word against word”. This is not true, this is not how the judicial mechanism works on these cases.
The press seizes, many years later, of facts which could be prescribed or are prescribed. What do you think about this ?
It is very healthy. We have journalists in this country doing their job very well and there is absolutely no reason for judicial time and journalistic time to coincide strictly because they are two totally different things. The European Court of Human Rights has clearly said that the subject of sexual violence is a subject of general interest in our society. It is a subject which has enormous repercussions on half of the population, at least, in terms of health, employment and personal development. Let everyone do their job according to their needs.