Many countries require that consent be given before sex — and have written that into their rape laws. France is not among them. Now, two lawmakers hope to change that. Debate has begun on their bill, and a vote, in the powerful lower house of the French Parliament, is expected on Tuesday. Their cause has…
The day her father and dozens of other men were convicted of raping her mother in a trial that had gripped France was an acute personal tragedy to Caroline Darian. She escaped the Avignon courthouse and was enveloped in a giant crowd of women blocking traffic and chanting their love and gratitude for her and…
The daughter of the convicted rapist Dominique Pelicot, whose trial horrified France as it detailed his years of abusing his wife with strangers, filed a police complaint against him this week that accused him of drugging and raping her as well. Mr. Pelicot was found guilty last December of drugging and raping his wife, Gisèle…
In December, a court sentenced Dominique Pelicot to 20 years in prison for drugging his wife Gisèle and inviting dozens of men to their bedroom to rape her between 2011 and 2020. The trial stunned France and turned Mr. Pelicot into France’s most infamous sexual predator. His wife, Gisèle, became a feminist icon. But the…
Shortly after Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested by the police in France last summer and charged with failing to prevent illicit activity on the app, a French law professor specializing in cybersecurity got online messages from a man named Isaac Steidl. “I would like to talk with you,” said an email signed…