France wants to ban slaps, beating on the butt and other physical punishment of children. The National Assembly approved a bill in the first reading on Friday night.
Thus, the country with several years late European requirements. The Council of Europe in Strasbourg, which monitors, inter alia, the observance of human rights, welcomed the vote. He had reprimanded France three and a half years ago for allowing "light" chastisements in the family for "educational purposes".
However, the new French bill does not provide for sanctions against violent parents. Health Minister Buzyn said the novella was not "merely symbolic". Because it breaks with the - also among judges - widespread opinion that there is a "right to a beating" for parents.
The law should be directed against "ordinary educational violence". These included screaming, verbal abuse or pulling hair. Violent acts of violence against children can already be punished in France under criminal law.
Not yet adopted
The bill has not yet been finally adopted. Now, the Senate has to discuss it, so the House of Lords of Parliament. The last word, however, is the National Assembly.
In Sweden, children have had non-violent upbringing since 1979, and in Germany there has been a corresponding law since November 2000. "Physical punishment, mental injury and other degrading measures are inadmissible," the Civil Code states.
Sanctions against parents are also not provided in this country, as long as it is not about maltreatment and sexual abuse. In such cases, depending on the seriousness of the crime, several years imprisonment are imminent.
In the future, a sentence will be included in the Civil Code of France, which will be read by the Registrar at weddings. Accordingly, the "authority of parents without physical or psychological violence to be exercised." According to the government, it will be taboo in the future also the slap on the butt or slap.
Interference in family life?
"One does not educate by fear," said Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn in the debate on the prohibition of so-called "educational violence". Parental authority has "catastrophic effects on the child's development". Conservative and right-wing populists, on the other hand, complain about inadmissible "interference" in family life and a decline in parental authority.
For the bill, which is also supported by parts of the opposition, now 51 parliamentarians voted. There was one dissent and three abstentions.
The debate has been going on in France for years. As early as 2009, the then conservative governing party UMP had introduced a bill that should prohibit corporal punishment. A first law was overturned by the Constitutional Council in January 2017 due to formal shortcomings.