Paris under fire after latest refusal to adopt EU-wide rape definition

France again voted against incorporating rape into the EU directive on combating violence against women during inter-institutional trilogue talks between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament on Wednesday (13 December).

Read the original French article here.

To mark International Women’s Rights Day on 8 March 2022, the European Commission presented its proposal for an EU Directive to fight violence against women.

In particular, it aims to combat forced marriages, female genital mutilation, sexist cyber harassment and forced sterilisation.

But at Wednesday’s trilogue negotiations, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council failed to reach an agreement on the key issue of whether or not to include rape in the directive – and, more importantly, how to define it, since definitions vary between European countries.

In Belgium, for example, the law introduces the concept of consent. In Italy, rape is defined as a sexual act imposed with force, authority or threat.

But establishing an EU-wide definition of rape is precisely what the proposed directive is all about, as it would harmonise criminal sanctions across the bloc, with over 100,000 rapes (as per the various definitions) recorded in the EU each year, according to the French statistical body INSEE.

The definition proposed by the European Parliament and the Commission states that rape is sexual intercourse without consent.

But on the side of the Council, the definition was only approved by Spain, Italy and Belgium, who voted in favour of the directive but rejected by Poland, Hungary, France and Germany, among others.

Renew MEPs break ranks

But the French government’s opposition to the definition does not bode well with French MEPs, including, it would seem, among President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party of EU political group Renew.

“I don’t understand this resistance,” the “particularly shocked” French conservative EPP MEP Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé told a press conference a few minutes before the start of the trilogue talks on Wednesday.

France’s position also appears to have come as a  surprise to Renew MEPs as they had requested him to back the incorporation of the EU definition of rape to the directive in an op-ed published in Le Monde the day before the trilogue talks.

“We, the MEPs of the presidential majority, therefore call on the government to allow negotiations to be finalised with a European definition of rape in line with the aspirations of our time,” the text signed by 23 Renew MEPs reads.

“At a time when one woman in 20 is a victim of rape in Europe, the Byzantine legal arguments put forward by the member states give a feeling of total disconnection from the suffering experienced by the victims,” they add.

“The Renaissance MEPs, including the leader of the Presidential Party himself, are disowning the government, which is scandalously blocking the inclusion of rape in the directive on sexist & sexual violence,” French MEP Manon Aubry of La France Insoumise (GUE/NGL) who also noted a “feeling of total end of reign in ‘Macronie'”, wrote on X.

The issue has even made its way to Paris.

On 5 December, the women’s rights delegation to the French National Assembly launched a fact-finding mission on the criminal definition of rape, with hearings of lawyers, associations and MPs. A first press conference scheduled for 12 December was postponed.

Legal limitations of consent

Despite facing strong public outcry, the French government is standing firm on its position that its resistance is rooted in legal reasons.

“France is not hostile but believes that there is no legal basis for doing so. Criminal law is a matter for the member states, not the EU, except in the case of Eurocrimes,” a European source close to the matter told Euractiv last November.

So-called “Eurocrimes” comprise criminal offences listed in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) for which the EU has competence. These include corruption, terrorism and sexual exploitation.

But according to the French government, rape does not fall within the scope of sexual exploitation – a position rejected by some 40 Green and Socialist MPs and senators in a letter sent to the government on 13 November.

“The term sexual exploitation in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has already been used as a legal basis for the European Union to adopt legislation against child sexual abuse in 2011, with the support of France,” the letter’s signatories argue.

Another argument put forward by the government is that including the notion of consent in the text would be “less protective” for victims – a point even made by French Equality Minister Bérangère Couillard at a meeting on violence against women in October.

All eyes on the Belgian presidency

Getting the text adopted by the end of the Spanish six-month presidency of the EU on 31 December, as the European Parliament and the Commission had hoped, now looks almost impossible.

“We are asking France and Germany to move on these issues,” said Irish Conservative MEP Frances Fitzgerald (EPP) at Wednesday’s press conference.

“These countries need to take the lead. They cannot hide behind the legal argument,” added her Swedish Social Democrat (S&D) colleague Evin Incir.

Negotiations will now continue under the Belgian EU presidency, which runs from January to June next year.

In other words, if no agreement is reached by June, it will be up to Hungary and then Poland to lead the talks – or not.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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