The Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti announced on Sunday that he wanted to set a threshold of non-consent at 18 for incest, as recently requested by personalities from the artistic world in a forum.

"For incest, we want the threshold of 18 years. Nobody will be able to say: if the victim is 17 years old, she was or he agreed", declared the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti in the "Grand jury LCI / RTL / Le Figaro".

"I said, on incest, we continue to work. I am telling you about the choices that were arbitrated by the chancellery," he added.

"Mass crime"

In a column published Friday in

Le Parisien Weekend

, 162 personalities from the artistic world called for the protection of children from sexual crimes, calling them a "mass crime".

"We who want firm laws to dissuade these unacceptable acts, all of us who are signing this petition today, ask you that this threshold of non-consent be set at 15 years, 18 in the event of incest", says the text , written by Tristane Banon and signed in particular by Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Carré, Guillaume Gallienne or Patrice Leconte.

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- Sex crimes: Tristane Banon defends a "threshold of non-consent" at 15 years old

The government said on Tuesday it was "in favor" that any act of sexual penetration committed by an adult on a minor under 15 now automatically constitutes a crime, without it being possible to question the consent of the victim .

Asked about the entry into force of the text, Eric Dupond-Moretti mentioned the month of April "probably".

The prescription in question

Regarding the issue of limitation, that is to say the period beyond which one can no longer judge the facts, the Minister stressed the lack of consensus.

"Some victims need the deadline beyond which nothing is possible to decide. The mechanism is: there are still two months before the prescription, I'm going, I'm going to free myself from this unbearable weight, and there will be a trial, ”he said.

"Other victims say, I want to free myself but I do not want a trial and I am waiting for the limitation period to be acquired."

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Eric Dupond-Moretti wants "a graduated, staggered prescription".

“You have four prescribed cases, committed by the same author, so four victims who will not have the right to justice, then another case committed by the same author who is not time-barred. I want all five cases to be judged , that the four victims who had no right to anything be recognized by justice, "he explained.