The European rights court on Thursday found France's laws on sexual consent are insufficient, ruling against the authorities in a case involving a woman who accused her boss of coercing her into an abusive relationship.
The plaintiff, an assistant pharmacist now in her 40s, worked on a temporary contract at a hospital in 2010, when she entered into a sado-masochistic sexual relationship with the head of the department.
Sado-masochism typically involves one person inflicting pain or humiliating treatment on another, although the roles can switch.
The woman, named only as E.A, born in 1983, was around a decade-and-a-half younger than the department head, named as K.B., who was born in 1967.
She later filed a legal complaint against him, accusing him of "rape involving torture and barbaric acts" committed by a person abusing their authority, as well as "physical and psychological violence" and "harassment and sexual aggression".
A lower court convicted the man, but an appeals court cleared him in 2021 on the grounds that they had signed a written contract between them defining their sexual relations, which were therefore deemed consensual.
But the plaintiff, backed by the Paris-based European Association against Violence against Women at Work (AVFT), took her case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.
She alleged the French authorities had failed in their duty to conduct an effective investigation and had subjected her to "secondary victimisation".
The ECHR backed the claim, and also found that current criminal statutes in France fail to provide sufficient protection against non-consensual sexual acts.
Finding French authorities guilty of failing to respect the European human rights convention's provisions on the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, and to the respect for private life, the court ruled for the plaintiff.
It ordered the French state to pay her 20,000 euros ($23,000) in damages, plus legal costs.
The ECHR said any commitment to maintain sexual relations could be revoked at any time.
"The profound implication of this ECHR decision is how to define rape," said Nina Bonhomme Janotto, legal advisor for the AVFT.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Marjolaine Vignola, said she hoped the verdict would lead the French government to make the law "more protective of women".
France's parliament is currently debating a draft law that would define rape as "any non-consensual sexual act".
This would place the burden of proof not on presumed victims but -- as is already the case in countries including Spain and Sweden -- on alleged perpetrators, who would have to prove there was consent.
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