“Our letter to the President is ready to go. We are waiting for the appointment of the next Prime Minister to send it,” confided Modem MP Sandrine Josso. With RDSE Senator Véronique Guillotin, she was leading a government mission on chemical submission. Since April, hearings and trips had been held, but the dissolution happened. Sandrine Josso lost her seat before being re-elected. The government, still confined to current affairs, had interrupted the work. This is why the two elected officials took up their pens to let the next executive know that this mission was a priority.
“The appointment of an administrator had already been delayed, so much so that we had to manage to carry out the work ourselves. We are waiting for a new government to take over,” recalls Véronique Guillotin. The mission was placed under the authority of the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible for equality between women and men and the fight against discrimination, Aurore Bergé.
The mission was able to hold several round tables and make two trips. It notably heard victims, doctors, but also Leïla Chouachi, pharmacist, member of the Paris Addictovigilance Center and rapporteur of an annual survey on chemical submission to the ANSM (the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products). However, the elected officials did not have time to address the justice aspect.
“We need to raise awareness among all professionals”
And an unprecedented trial is taking place these days in Avignon and is breaking preconceived ideas about this process used by sexual aggressors. In Mazan, in Vaucluse, Gisèle P was drugged by her husband and then raped by dozens of strangers for 10 years. Around fifty men have been indicted. “We need to raise awareness among all medical professionals and the entire criminal justice system on the subject. And also explain to the population that this is not a modus operandi limited to a substance that is put in a drink in a nightclub. Almost half the time, it happens in the friendly and family sphere,” explains Sandrine Josso. The MP was herself the victim of chemical submission. Last year, she accused the senator for her Loire Atlantique constituency, Joël Guerriau, who she was close to, of drugging her with a view to sexually abusing her. The latter was indicted in November 2023 for “administration of a substance in order to commit rape or sexual assault” and for “possession and use of substances classified as narcotics”. The senator denied the facts and remains presumed innocent. The MP is now awaiting the trial date.
“In the majority of cases, the drug was taken in a private context.”
There is still too little known data to understand the phenomenon of chemical submission. They were collected by Leïla Chouachi as part of her annual survey for the ANSM. In 2021, 727 suspicious reports were recorded, 86.4% of which were following the filing of a complaint. The survey counted 82 victims, with a predominance of women (69.5%/57 cases), aged from 1 to 64 years old. “This concerns all backgrounds, men or women, regardless of sexual orientation. We tend to think that these are people who left their glass unattended, but in the majority of cases the product was taken in a private context and the perpetrators were known to the victims,” the pharmacist explained to publicsenat.fr
