After the Mazan rape trial and the appeal of 17 of the 51 men convicted, the French Minister of Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, deplored Friday that rape remains “the crime that we do not never confesses”, even “confronted with the evidence”.
A second trial will take place in the Mazan rape case, even if Dominique Pelicot, sentenced to 20 years in prison for having drugged his wife Gisèle in order to rape her and hand her over to dozens of strangers, accepted his sentence. But 17 of his co-defendants, also convicted, appealed.
“That says a lot,” reacted Ms. Bergé on France Inter. It is obviously completely their right to appeal. […[ Mais ça veut dire que même confrontés à des images, à des preuves, il y a encore ce déni.»
«Même confronté au fait que le premier des accusés [Dominique Pelicot] himself explained the approach he had taken, that is not enough. We still do not recognize the crime we committed,” she insisted.
“Rape is the crime we never admit to. We admit to having burglarized, we admit to having knocked. We never admit to having raped. Because we consider that we have not violated. That she must have consented. That women’s bodies belong to us, belong to men,” said the minister.
Ms. Bergé reiterated her desire for the notion of consent to be included in the penal code, accompanied by its precise definition, which will be determined by the parliamentary debate.
Furthermore, concerning domestic violence, she recalled that a bill, which she herself tabled in the National Assembly when she was a deputy, would be examined in January, in particular to include in the penal code an offense of “coercive control”, that is to say maneuvers aimed at psychologically destabilizing a victim, with the aim of preventing them from acting against their attacker.
“Violence against women is not primarily about beatings. […] There is all the control that we put in place. We will check your accounts, your outings, your phone […] your associates, we will isolate you. And this isolation means that you find yourself behind closed doors” which allows physical and sexual violence to take place, she said.
“Better characterize things, make it a crime […] I think it could be a game-changer,” she concluded.
