President Emmanuel Macron has said he is in favor of adding the notion of "consent" to the French law defining rape, according to a video seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, March 13.
The legal definition of rape in France includes the notions of "violence, coercion, threat or surprise," but makes no mention of "consent." Women's rights advocates have called for the law to be tightened by including the concept so that all sex without consent is rape. They say that only a tiny fraction of rapes or attempted rapes lead to a conviction.
"I totally understand that consent should be enshrined" in the law, Macron told a women's right group on March 8. "I will inscribe it in French law," he added in the video filmed by women's rights group's Choisir La Cause des Femmes (Choosing Women's Cause), a full version of which AFP saw on Wednesday. Contacted by AFP, the presidential palace did not wish to elaborate.
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.
France was however one of several countries to argue against including a consent-based definition of rape in a EU law passed last month. 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.
Earlier this month, French Parliament passed a constitutional amendment in a historic vote, making France the first country to clearly protect abortion rights in its basic law. Macron has now pledged to enshrine the right in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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.