"How can we admit that we have been abused when we cannot deny that we have been consenting?" When, in this case, did we feel the desire for this adult who hastened to profit from it? For years, I too will struggle with this notion of victim, unable to recognize myself. Vanessa Springora is not even 14 years old when she meets Gabriel Matzneff, almost fifty, during a social dinner to which his mother dragged him. We are in the mid-1980s, the writer enjoys a certain prestige for these sulphurous works, the adolescent, she struggles with her demons: badly in her skin, abandoned by her father, isolated…
In L e Consentement , published this Thursday, the one who is now the director of Julliard editions tells her story of love and control with Gabriel Matzneff - whom she never quotes - for almost two years. Love at first sight, the permissiveness of the adults around her, the slow and painful reconstruction linked in particular to the difficulty of perceiving herself as a victim. "Why couldn't a 14-year-old girl love a man 36 years older than her?" A hundred times I had returned this question in my mind. Without seeing that it was badly posed, from the start. It was not my attraction to me that had to be questioned, but hers. "
"The ban existed but we couldn't see the evil behind"
If some seek to advance the argument of a permissiveness linked to the time, the shocking story of Vanessa Springora poses a very current question: can one be really consenting at 14? On several occasions in recent years, often at the turn of various facts, the debate has been raised. Should we introduce, as in the United Kingdom or Belgium, a minimum age below which any sexual relationship between a minor and an adult cannot be freely consented and automatically results in sexual assault or rape?
In France, since 1994, the law prohibits any adult from having sexual relations - even consensual - with a minor of 15 years. This is the principle of "sexual harm to minors", punishable by seven years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros. The creation of this offense is therefore subsequent to the facts denounced by Vanessa Springora. At the time, however, the penal code punished "indecent assault without violence" on a fifteen year old minor and provided for a sentence of three to five years. "In the 1970s and 1980s, the ban existed but we could not see the evil behind it, analyzes Pierre Rosenczveig, former president of the Bobigny children's court. We were in a period of consecration of freedom, we did not see its perverse uses. Today, a prosecutor would take up this matter whether or not there is a complaint. "
The presumption of non-consent, an unconstitutional principle
In 2018, the executive had considered introducing this minimum age. The bill was eventually dropped during the year because it risked being unconstitutional. In a notice delivered in March 2018, the Wise Men notably considered that the automaticity of the minimum age of non-consent went against the presumption of innocence. "Whatever the crime or the offense, the basic principle of our justice is to prove guilt, explains Céline Parisot, the president of the Union of Magistrates' Union. Even if the child is very young, even if it seems obvious, proof of moral duress must be provided. "And the magistrate clarified:" The law is not moral, they can sometimes meet but not always. "
Despite this legal setback, activists and defenders of this cause hope that the testimony of Vanessa Springora or before her, Adèle Haenel, will revive the debate. "The idea is to engrave in stone the principle: if you touch a child, you go to the seat, whether you are rich or poor, famous or not," insists Pierre Rosenczveig. To circumvent the difficulty raised by the Council of State, the former president of the Bobigny children's court, ardent defender of the cause, recommends making the sexual attack not a simple offense but a crime. "The question of consent is subjective, we must place ourselves on the ground of facts by creating a minimum age below which these relationships fall under the foundation," he believes. The USM, for its part, puts forward the idea of introducing a minimum age without necessarily linking it to a notion of automaticity.
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- Gabriel Matzneff
- Paris
- Sexual assault
- Rape
- Society
- Justice