Latest Issue. Past Issues. A case involving an year-old girl has sparked a moment of moral and legal reckoning. O n April 24, , a year-old-man met an year-old girl in a park in Montmagny, just north of Paris, after which, he took her home where he had oral and vaginal sex with her. When it was over, the girl called her mother and described what had happened, and her mother called the police. The accusations were of an adult raping a childβa crime that, in France, can lead to a year prison sentence for the perpetrator when the victim is 15 or younger.
Such a defense flies in the face of legal and cultural consensus in most Western nations, and much of the world.
But in the meantime, it has also provoked an unprecedented backlash that has resulted in France considering a change to a longstanding, anomalous feature of its laws: Up to now, there has been no legal age of consent for sex. Most of the age minimums range between 14 and 16 years of age.
Fixing a specific age of consent means that children and adolescents below that age cannot, regardless of circumstances, be considered consenting to sex; their very age renders them incapable. As a result, an adult in most European nations who has sex with someone under this age would be charged with rape, even if violent force is not used.
While French law does not include a fixed age of consent, it does recognize sexual minors. A sexual minor can still legally be considered able to give their consentβin this case, their perpetrator would be charged with sexual infraction, not rape.
