Sexual violence in porn: three actors and a director placed in police custody

Europe 1 with AFP 6:51 p.m., September 27, 2022

New crackdown in so-called amateur porn: three actors and a director were arrested on Tuesday in the investigation in Paris on the "French Bukkake" pornographic video platform which has been shaking up this industry for two years.

They were placed in police custody on Tuesday as part of the judicial investigation opened in October 2020 for aggravated human trafficking, gang rape or aggravated pimping, sources familiar with the matter told AFP.

Since the start of the investigations carried out by the gendarmes of the Paris research section, more than forty victims have joined as civil parties, as well as associations.

12 prosecuted in a case exceptional in its scope

In total, 12 men, actors, directors, producers, are prosecuted in this exceptional case by its magnitude.

The vast majority are incarcerated.

Among them, the producers nicknamed "Pascal OP" and "Mat Hadix", very well known in this porn scene which plays with the image of amateurism.

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According to elements of the investigation revealed by the press and of which AFP was aware, the platform of "Pascal OP", "French Bukkake", named after a sexual practice, first attracted the attention of investigators: a subscription allowed customers to participate in priority to these collective ejaculations, with places reserved for sessions without condoms.

This system aimed at making individuals pay in exchange for organized sexual relations has fueled, in the eyes of the courts, suspicions of pimping.

The modus operandi identified by the investigators

To find "actresses" for filming, a modus operandi was identified by the investigators: a tout, posing as an "ally" woman, "Axelle", managed to convince these women met on the internet, often with difficult and destitute life paths, to prostitute themselves.

This tout then turned into a client and obtained from them a sexual service aimed at removing their reluctance to paid sex.

After having left them without pay, "Axelle" contacted them again to suggest a new way to bail them out, via high-paying porn videos intended for Canada.

But the film ended up being accessible everywhere, including in France.

Subject to lengthy analyzes by the gendarmes of the Paris research section, the videos produced "really questioned the consent of young women to the various sexual performances", since in certain passages, they verbally opposed sexual practices that were imposed.

Many cases in the pornographic industry

The legal qualification of these practices as rape is a novelty, in the opinion of several actors in the case.

The French porn industry has been in the spotlight for two years: another survey carried out in Paris since July 2020 targets "Jacquie et Michel", the embodiment in France of amateur porn and tricolor pillar of this industry.

In June, four men, including the founder of the site, Michel Piron, were indicted in an open judicial investigation, in particular for aggravated pimping, trafficking in human beings in an organized gang, rape with torture and acts of barbarism.

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The political world has also taken up the subject, since the delegation for women's rights in the Senate is due to present its report on the pornography industry on Wednesday.

During a hearing in June as part of this work, Hélène Collet, deputy prosecutor at the Paris prosecutor's office in charge of the "French Bukkake" file, had mentioned the "important means" and the "considerable work" on this investigation.

"One issue lies in the withdrawal of the videos", source of "many legal problems, especially if the host of the platform is abroad", underlined the representative of the public prosecutor's office.

"It's endless," lamented a civil party lawyer to AFP.

He specified that this question was crucial for the plaintiffs, who would have paid the producers to obtain the withdrawal of the diffusion of the images on their site... without any effect on the rest of the Net where the video had been duplicated.

A source close to the case told AFP that Tuesday's arrests could be the last, before the prospect of a trial at the assizes.