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Macron supports enshrining ‘sexual consent’ in French law

French president Emmanuel Macron said he would support enshrining the notion of sexual consent in French law in an 'only yes means means' style clause.

Published: 13 March 2024 16:43 CET

Macron supports enshrining 'sexual consent' in French law

A protestor holds a sign reading "Consent, it can be learnt" during a rally by the feminist collective NousToutes in Paris on November 19, 2022. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

During a filmed exchanged with the head of a feminist organisation, Macron said he was in favour of enshrining a notion of consent, as it pertains to rape and sexual violence, within the French law.

“I am going to enshrine it within the law,” Macron said on International Women’s Day (March 8th), while speaking with Violaine Lucas, the head of the association, Choisir la cause des femmes, which was founded by the feminist lawyer Gisèle Halimi.

The video of the interaction was published on social media.

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The comments from the president came shortly after France became the first country to protect a right to abortion in its constitution.

Macron has now also pledged to enshrine the right in Europe’s basic law.

In the days following his conversation with Lucas, the president did not make any further comments about adding consent to the law, and the Élysée Palace refused to respond to questions from the French media.

However, a group of lawmakers is working on a report on whether to add consent to the law that they are to present mid-April.

“It’s good news for women’s rights,” one of them, Greens lawmaker Marie-Charlotte Garin, said after Macron’s remarks.

Macron’s response came after Lucas questioned him about France failing to support an EU initiative in December that would have created a common definition for rape.

The states in opposition argued that rape does not have the cross-border dimension necessary for it to be considered a crime that comes with common penalties across the European Union.

Macron said in the March 8 video that he did not believe rape was a “eurocrime”, but did want to change French law.

Currently, France’s criminal law (code Article 222-23) defines rape as “any act of sexual penetration of any kind or any oral or genital act committed on the victim or forced onto the perpetrator by violence, coercion, threat or surprise”.

Other European countries have attempted to pass sexual consent legislation, including Sweden, Greece, Denmark and Finland.

In 2022, Spain also put forward an ‘only yes means yes’ (sólo sí es sí) law, which was intended to tighten sexual consent laws – however in practice the poorly-designed law has led to the reduction of sentences and even release of some sexual offenders.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.