On 8 March, on the International Women’s Day, during a meet with the members of the feminist association Choisir la cause des femmes, founded by Gisèle Halimi, an activist on access to abortion in France, the President Macron promised that the notion of consent will be enshrined in the French law.
Currently, in France, rape is considered to be a sexual act committed on a person under threat, duress, surprise and/or violence but makes no mention of the word’ consent”. Macron wants to amend French law to explicitly include the notion of consent – as is already the case in several other EU countries such as Spain and Belgium. The national consultative commission on Human rights (CNCDH) expressed concerns that the fight against sexual violence is one of the great failures of French criminal Policy.
However, the president’s comments have caused a stir since they are in total contradiction with the French position on the European directive to combat violence against women. There are debates on adding the word ‘consent’ into the definition of rape as it would risk ‘contractualising sexual relations’ as the person responsible is the rapist and the major risk is the burden of proof of consent falls on the victim. At the same time there are women advocates who call for tightening the concept of rape so that any act without consent leads to such violation of women’s dignity. The main reason be that only a tiny fraction of rapes or attempted rapes leads to conviction.
France was however one of several countries to argue against including a consent-based definition of rape in EU law-passed last month. Spain in 2023 approved new legislation, dubbed the "Only yes means yes" law, under which all non-consensual sex is rape. Sweden, Greece, Denmark and Finland have also passed similar laws.
While In Spain: The conviction of former Brazilian footballer Dani Alves described "triumph for feminism". The former right-back for FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for a rape committed in the bathroom of a Barcelona nightclub. "It is established that the victim did not consent, and there is evidence that, beyond the testimony of the complainant, supports the conclusion that the rape occurred," the court detailed in a statement. These include injuries to the knees, psychological after-effects and consistent statements from various witnesses. The sentence, mitigated by the payment of €150,000 made voluntarily by the player before the start of the trial, was accompanied by five years of supervised release and a nine-and-a-half-year restraining order requiring him to stay at least one kilometer away from the victim. It was also accompanied by €150,000 in compensation for moral and physical damages. The public prosecutor had requested nine years imprisonment.
