While in November 2018 rumors of sexual assault committed by a student on another were circulating, at the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), the supposed victim had been summoned by the management of the establishment which was investigating. Therefore, if this student victim denounced the facts contested by the alleged attacker, he did not do so on his own initiative, observed the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation. Who, in his order dated Tuesday June 25, 2024, considers that the facts described by the court of appeal do not characterize a spontaneous denunciation on the part of this student.
Elements “not met” to characterize a slanderous denunciation
And it has not been established, she continued, that the latter intentionally spread the rumour to provoke a sanction against the other, nor that he was the originator of the rumour. The elements of the offence of malicious denunciation were therefore not met, concluded the Court of Cassation.
The student presented as a “sexual predator” had attempted suicide. At the time, the Rennes public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for “sexual assault” and another for “defamation”. The first was dismissed. The second resulted in the student being referred to court for slanderous denunciation on September 8, 2020. The judges then did not follow the prosecution, which was already asking for a six-month suspended prison sentence. The accused was released.
In November 2022, the court of appeal made a completely different decision, sentencing the former student to six months suspended prison sentence for slanderous denunciation, to three years of deprivation of his civil rights and to pay damages. A decision today annulled by the Court of Cassation. The case will therefore be sent back to the court of appeal, so that other magistrates can judge it again on the merits of the case.
