The Senate is studying on Wednesday a socialist bill aimed at providing reparation to homosexual people convicted in France between 1942 and 1982. The text nevertheless has little chance of being adopted as it stands.
“Fix a mistake by society.” In France, between 1942 and 1982, several thousand people were sentenced for homosexuality, most to prison terms. A bill, which will be debated on Wednesday November 22 in the Senate during the Socialist Party’s parliamentary session, proposes to compensate those convicted and to recognize the responsibility of the State in this persecution.
“We have enough perspective to be able to look at this painful and inglorious past, and to recognize the mistakes that were made“, justifies socialist senator Hussein Bourgi, at the origin of the text, to franceinfo. How was homosexuality repressed in France? What does the bill contain? Is she likely to be adopted? Franceinfo summarizes everything you need to know.
Homosexuals risked prison until 1982
France was the first country in the world to decriminalize homosexuality, in 1791, during the French Revolution. But the policy of discrimination against homosexual people continued well after, based in particular on two articles of the Penal Code.
Under the guise of protecting youth, the Vichy regime first reintroduced discrimination between heterosexual and homosexual people by the law of August 6, 1942 by aligning the sexual majority with the civil majority at 21 years for homosexuals (compared to 13 years for heterosexuals). This offense was confirmed upon release and included in article 331 of the Penal Code. Nearly two decades later, the order of November 25, 1960 incorporated into article 330 of the same code an aggravating circumstance for public outrage of modesty when it was committed against a person of the same sex. These two offenses were punishable by six months to three years of imprisonment and several thousand francs in fines.
“Judges used a much broader criminal arsenal and all kinds of articles to repress homosexuality, even though they were not explicitly intended to do so.”
Antoine Idier, sociologist and historian specializing in homosexualityto AFP
Some were thus able to be condemned for “moral indecency” or “excitement of a minor to debauchery”. It was not until 1982 that homosexuality was definitively decriminalized in France.
It is difficult to know exactly how many people have been convicted of homosexuality since the Vichy regime. According to the work of sociologists Jérémie Gauthier and Régis Schlagdenhauffen, at least 10,000 convictions took place in France between 1942 and 1982, on the basis of article 331 of the Penal Code. They were almost exclusively men, from the working class. A third of them were married, widowed or divorced, and a quarter had children. Between 1945 and 1978, 93% of convictions carried a prison sentence. However, other convictions for homosexuality took place, on the basis of other articles. Heard by the senators, Régis Schlagdenhauffen estimates that up to 50,000 people may have been convicted because of their homosexuality, real or supposed.
The bill intends to repair an injustice
All of those convicted have already been amnestied by the law of August 4, 1981, leading to the erasure of the corresponding entries in the criminal record. The current bill wishes to go further by enshrining France’s responsibility in “the policy of criminalization and discrimination” carried out against homosexual people. It also provides for the creation of a new offense, inspired by the offense of “negationism”, for those who “contest the existence of the deportation of people because of their homosexuality from France”.
The text finally intends to create an independent commission in order to compensate those convicted, up to a minimum of 10,000 euros. This fixed compensation would also be increased by a sum equivalent to 150 euros per day in prison served. The text also provides for the reimbursement of fines paid by those convicted. In countries that have already adopted this type of compensation (Germany, Austria, Canada and Spain), however, few people take steps to receive compensation, points out Régis Schlagdenhauffen, who believes that “the overall sum should not exceed two million euros”reports The cross.
In a column published in June 2022 in the magazine Stubborn, activists, trade unionists and elected officials had asked France to recognize and rehabilitate the thousands of victims of repression. For lawyer Joël Deumier, co-president of the SOS Homophobia association, this “acknowledgement” of the role of the State is “essential”.
“If homophobia still exists in today’s society, it is also because laws, regulations and state practices have legitimized this discrimination in the past.”
Joël Deumier, co-president of SOS Homophobiato AFP
With this text, “we are repairing a moment of shame and terrible infamy”also believes Jean-Louis Lecouffe, member of the coordination of the Parisian group of the association of LGBT and Christian people David and Jonathan. He hopes that the bill could trigger “awareness” on “violence” what homosexual people may have suffered in France.
“State homophobia meant chasing homosexuals everywhere”, also remembers Michel Chomarat, 74, arrested in May 1977 in Paris, alongside eight men, during a police incursion into the gay bar Manhattan. He who had hoped, from July 2022, on France Inter, that the France “look your past in the face, even if it is not glorious”, nevertheless regrets that this bill is coming “so late”many of the people affected by the convictions having already died.
The principle of this compensation could be rejected
The Senate bill was signed by socialist, environmentalist, communist groups and radical, centrist and Republican senators.
“I continue to think that this is a sufficiently consensual subject to bring together all the goodwill of the Hemicycle.”
Hussein Bourgi, senator at the origin of the billon Public Senate
However, the text did not have the approval of the Senate Law Committee – a group of senators, chaired by François-Noël Buffet (Les Républicains), responsible for first examining proposals and bills. Rapporteur Francis Szpiner (LR) notably raised concerns “legal difficulties”. According to him, the proposal, for example, contradicts “the maximum duration [de 30 ans] during which damage can be compensated.
The elected official is also opposed, in substance, to the principle of generalized compensation, on the grounds that the States having adopted it have a “history” Who “differs significantly from that of France” due “the massive nature of the convictions” (more than 90,000 in Germany) or “the existence of a global homophobic state policy” (under Spanish Francoism). The rapporteur also considers that the deportation of homosexuals from France during the Second World War is already covered by the offense of “negationism” provided for by the law of July 29, 1881.
The right and the center have a majority in the Senate, their approval of the text is necessary to carry the vote. However, if the bill has little chance of passing as it stands, the LR rapporteur to the Law Committee said he was in favor of the fact. “of recognize”by a vote, “that the legislator went astray by subjecting homosexuality to criminal law”. To this end, he is in favor of adopting an amendment which notably deletes the reference to financial compensation.