The French Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill defining rape and sexual assault as any non-consensual act, making France the latest European country to enshrine the principle of consent in law.
The proposal, presented in January after a landmark trial that saw 51 men convicted of abusing Gisèle Pelicot while she drugged unconscious, passed in the Senate by 327 votes, with 15 abstentions.
After the lower house of parliament also approved it last week, France's criminal code will now be updated to state that "any non-consensual sexual act constitutes sexual assault".
French law previously defined rape a sex act committed "by violence, coercion, threat or surprise".
The new wording says consent must be "freely given, informed, specific, prior and revocable" and specifies that it "cannot be inferred solely from the silence or the lack of reaction of the victim".
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Watershed moment
Lawmakers have submitted proposals to add consent to France's rape law since 2023, but the efforts gathered momentum with the high-profile Pelicot trial last year.
Some defendants argued that they hadn't used force or threats to penetrate the sedated Pelicot, who they claimed to believe was a consensual participant.
After the court rejected those arguments in December, a parliamentary report called for urgent reform of French law to make affirmative consent central to the definition of rape.
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"By modifying the law, what we want to do is reaffirm that for something to qualify as a sexual relationship, there must be freely given consent. Otherwise it's an act of violence, of domination – it's rape," Marie-Charlotte Garin, who co-authored the report with fellow MP Véronique Riotton, told RFI.
"We need to clarify the law, to remind people what constitutes sexuality and what constitutes violence and domination. And the best way to do this is to include the notion of consent."
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Only far-right lawmakers, who criticised the changing definition of consent as "subjective, shifting and difficult to grasp", opposed the bill in the lower house.
National Rally lawmaker Sophie Blanc said the change would put the focus on the victim's actions, "not the violence of the perpetrator".
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But supporters of the reform say it will shift the burden onto offenders to prove there was consent.
Several other EU countries have already enshrined consent in their rape laws, including Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain.
(with newswires)
