Top French court to decide if sexual assault by firemen on 13-year-old was rape

France's highest appeals court is to decide on Wednesday whether a series of sexual assaults by firefighters on a 13-year-old girl should be classified as rape. The government has said it intends to make adult sex with children under 15 a criminal offence, regardless of the issue of consent.

“Julie”, as she is referred to in court, was allegedly raped by 20 firefighters from the Paris region between 2008 and 2010. It began with firefighter Pierre C. when the girl was just 13.

In her statements to investigators, Julie described how Pierre C. gained her confidence, groomed her and introduced her to colleagues. The alleged sexual attacks took place at her home, in other apartments, hospital toilets, parks and car parks, sometimes with several firefighters at the same time.

Julie finally pressed charges in 2010, but the case has taken more than a decade to reach France's supreme court of appeal.

Three of the 20 firefighters have been charged with sexual assault. Julie's lawyers argue that all 20 firefighters should be charged with rape.

130 visits in two years

Pierre and two other firefighters have admitted to having sex with Julie but maintain it was consensual.

“They all recognise that they had penetrative sex with Julie and at the last minute it was reclassified as sexual violation. It doesn't make sense,” her mother Corinne Leriche told French media at a demonstration in Paris on Sunday. “If the court of cassation doesn't overturn the judgement, 17 of those firefighters will never be judged and that's unbearable.”

Julie suffered from severe anxiety attacks as a teenager. She tried to commit suicide several times and was on heavy medication for depression. The firefighters brigade in Bourg-la-Reine south of Paris made some 130 visits to her home between 2008 and 2010 to help her with her seizures.

Her lawyers said in her file that the heavy drugs she took put her "in a state of fragility and psychological weakness”.

In November 2009, Pierre C. forced her to have oral sex in the presence of two of his colleagues.

“I was coerced, I was threatened with punches, I was raped,” she told the news site Mediapart in an interview. “I was so out of it, I could scarcely react.”

At the Paris rally on Sunday she told the crowds: "I have a message for my rapists: you thought you could kill me, now it's your turn to tremble."

'Sexual violation', not rape

In August 2010, Julie filed an official complaint against the three firefighters for aggravated rape and corruption of a minor. In 2012 she filed another complaint for rape against 19 other firefighters, two of whom have since died.

The case took a long time to come to court and in 2019 a judge decided to drop the rape charges against the three men and replace them with “consensual penetrative sex with a minor under 15”. No charges were brought against the others.

The family appealed the verdict. Last November the court of appeal in Versailles rejected the appeal, deeming that Julie had consented to the sexual acts.

Age of consent

Feminist campaigners have rallied to Julie's cause with the hashtag #justicepourjulie. Several hundred demonstrated in Paris and other major cities last Sunday. Some say it's an aberration to even speak about consent where children are concerned.

“We have the case of a 13-year old child and 20 or so firefighters, nothing could be clearer,” said Ursula Le Menn, spokesperson for Osez le féminisme (Dare feminism). “If the court isn't capable of seeing that there is coercion and rape, then what in their eyes would be enough to have it classified as rape?”

Under French law, for sexual assault to be classified as rape it must involve “coercion, threat, violence or surprise”.

Some child protection campaigners, psychiatrists, and lawyers specialising in sexual violence argue that in the case of children, that classification is inadequate.

“We need to reform the law in favour of protecting children,” says lawyer Carine Durrieu-Diebolt who's been working on sexual violence for 25 years.

“We need to introduce a separate chapter on sexual violence against minors and remove from the penal code everything concerning violence, coercion, threat and surprise which are very difficult to prove because, when it comes to children, there is often no violence, so no trace. Moral coercion or threat leaves no proof and that's why, in most cases, we don't manage to establish the acts.”

She advocates setting an age of sexual consent at 15 so that “all acts of sexual penetration on children under the age of 15 constitute rape and all sexual acts without penetration constitute sexual violation”.

Rape currently incurs a prison sentence of up to 20 years, and sexual violation seven years.

U-turn on age of consent

Unlike most EU countries, France has no legal age of consent. But there have been recent attempts to introduce one.

In 2017, two cases involving 11-year old girls caused an outcry in France. In both cases the courts found the girls had consented to sexual relations. One of the perpetrators was charged with sexual violation rather than rape, the other was released without charge.

Following protests by feminist groups, a change in the 2018 law on sexual and sexist violence was proposed which would have introduced an age of consent at 15.

It was backed by President Emmanuel Macron who had made introducing an age of consent one of his electoral campaign promises.

But the Council of State, the country's top administrative court, deemed such a measure would go against “the presumption of innocence” and the change was dropped.

“The Schiappa law was adopted very hastily and it was badly written,” said Diebolt. “We weren't able to take it as far as it should have gone.”

Positive signs

There are now promising signs that the situation is evolving.

On 9 February, Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti said the government was "favourable" to criminalising all acts of penetrative sex committed by an adult on a child under the age of 15, without raising the issue of the victim's consent.

This followed the Senate's approval last month of an amendment which would make it a crime to have sexual relations with a child under the age of 13 without needing to establish the notion of consent. Diebolt is backing another amendment by ruling party MP Alexandra Louis which proposed the age limit of 15.

“It takes a long time to draft a law, for it to be clear and easily applicable and respect everyone's rights, including the rights of the defence, which is very important in France," Diebolt said. "But everyone is going in the right direction.”

Diebolt acknowledged that, despite considerable progress over the last two or three years in terms of listening to victims of sexual violence, obstacles remain.

“Cases of rape within the military are very difficult to prove,” she points out.

Firefighters are gendarmes, and so form part of the military establishment, and they are often seen as heroes in France.

All the defendants on Wednesday will plead not guilty.