In France, nearly 125,000 women have undergone sexual mutilation. The practice, which some describe as "traditional", "religious" or even "obligatory", is struggling to disappear.
In France, the first cases of female genital mutilation appear at the end of the 1970s. In 1982, an infant girl dies in a Parisian hospital following an excision. Although a civil suit is a possibility, the French government prefers to rely on the achievements of prevention and education.