France includes the need for consent in rape law after the Giselle Pellicault case

The French parliament has ratified an amendment to add consent to the legal definition of sexual violence and rape law.

Before, rape or sexual assault was defined in France as “any form of sexual penetration carried out using violence, coercion, threat or surprise”.

The law will now say that all sexual acts performed on another without consent constitute rape.

The change is the result of a cross-party, years-long debate that took on new urgency after last year’s Pellicott rape trial, in which 50 men were found guilty of rapes Giselle Pellicot while she is drugged unconscious by her husband Dominique.

The defense of many of the defendants hinged on the fact that they could not be guilty of rape because they did not know that Mrs. Pellicott was incapable of consent.

Because of this, some defense attorneys in the Pelicot case argued that there could be no crime without the intent to commit it.

The new bill will make that argument weaker, saying that consent must be “free and informed, specific, prior and revocable”.

The law now says that consent will have to be assessed in the circumstances, noting that it cannot be inferred from “silence or lack of response”.

“There is no consent if the sexual act is carried out by violence, coercion, threat or surprise, regardless of their nature,” it said.

The two MPs who drafted the amendment – Marie-Charlotte Garin of the Greens and centrist Véronique Riotton – said it was a “historic victory” and welcomed “a big step forward in the fight against sexual violence”.

Some critics of the amendment argued that it would turn sexual relations into “contracts”. Others were concerned that the changes could force rape victims to prove they did not consent.

But France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State (Conseil d’État), said in March it supported the amendment, saying it would “make it clear… that sexual assault violates the fundamental principle of everyone’s personal and sexual freedom”.

The initial version was adopted by the National Assembly in April. Its progress has been delayed by the current political turmoil in France, but on Wednesday the Senate finally passed the bill with 327 votes in favor and 15 abstentions. It then returned to Parliament, which gave it final approval.

Last year, Greens senator Melanie Vogel argued that while society had “already accepted the fact that the difference between sex and rape is consent”, criminal law was not keeping pace.

“This is a historic step forward, following in the footsteps of several other European countries,” Lola Shulman, advocacy officer at Amnesty International France, told AFP on Wednesday.

Sweden, Germany and Spain are among the European countries that already have consensual rape laws.