Yahoo – AFP,
Jessica LOPEZ and Clare BYRNE, October 21, 2017
Paris (AFP) - It took the fall of a US movie mogul to breach the culture of silence around sexual assault and harassment in France, but French feminist Caroline De Haas believes the country has turned a corner.
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| Since the recent allegations against Harvey Weinstein, thousands of women have spoken out about their experiences of sexual harassment (AFP Photo/ Yann COATSALIOU) |
Paris (AFP) - It took the fall of a US movie mogul to breach the culture of silence around sexual assault and harassment in France, but French feminist Caroline De Haas believes the country has turned a corner.
"There
will be a before and an after #balancetonporc," she told AFP.
The
#balancetonporc (expose your pig) hashtag is the French variant of the #metoo
campaign launched in response to the plethora of abuse allegations that toppled
movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
Over the
past week, social media accounts in France -- like in the US -- have been awash
with accounts of harassment or assault, with tens of thousands of women (and
some men) adding their names to the list of alleged victims.
In a
country long seen as soft on sexual harassment -- where the predatory style of
ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was an open secret before he was brought
down by a US assault case brought by a hotel maid -- feminists see the flood of
testimonies as a turning point.
"Even
if many women didn't share their stories they will certainly have been
impacted," Haas said. "They (the accounts) give voice to a legitimate
anger that has been contained for too long."
The French
campaign was started by US-based French journalist, Sandra Muller, who shared a
story on Twitter of a humiliating advance from a top French executive.
 |
| French feminist Caroline De Haas believes France has turned a corner in standing up to sexual assault and harassment (AFP Photo/JOEL SAGET) |
"You
have big breasts. You are my type of woman. I will make you orgasm all
night," she quoted him as saying in a tweet urging others to also out
tormentors or aggressors.
Similar
stories of harassment or abuse -- on the street, on public transport, at work
-- flooded in immediately.
One woman
described an "old man in his 70s who undressed me with his eyes in the
metro".
Another
noted that "the saddest thing, in fact, is that we all have similar
anecdotes".
Christine
Bard, a professor of feminist history at Angers University in western France,
described the outpouring as unprecedented.
"All
these women, from all over, saying the same thing, breaks the silence and the
individual logic which makes you think you're the only one afraid," she
said.
Over half
of the French women surveyed for an Odoxa-Dentsu poll published Friday -- 53
percent -- said they had been victims of sexual assault or harassment.
Rape
reporting 'explosion'
While the
French film industry has so far avoided being caught up in the fallout from the
Weinstein scandal, the host of a French TV talent show has been taken off air
over allegations of misconduct involving a leading jury member.
M6 broadcaster
said it had decided to pull France's answer to "America's Got Talent"
after several women came forward with allegations of harassment or assault
against Canadian impresario Gilbert Rozon.
The
chauvinistic world of French politics has also been thrust back into the
spotlight.
This week,
the daughter of a former conservative minister accused an elderly former
Socialist minister of having sexually assaulted her at the Paris Opera --
allegations he denied.
 |
Calls to
the French Collective against Rape hotline have "exploded", the
group's
head Emmanuelle Piet said (AFP Photo/ALAIN JOCARD)
|
An MP in
President Emmanuel Macron's party is facing claims of harassment by his former
parliamentary assistant, Franceinfo radio reported Friday, while a member of
the greater Paris regional council has been excluded by his party after claims
made by two female associates.
In a sign
of the momentum behind the campaign, the government has announced plans for
tougher sanctions against offenders.
Gender
Equality Minister Marlene Schiappa said she aimed to introduce on-the-spot
fines for the harassment of women on the street by early 2018 -- after a
taskforce comes up with a definition of harassment.
"Today,
all too often, people don't complain because they don't dare," Macron said
on Sunday.
French
associations for the victims of sexual assault have meanwhile reported a sharp
rise in calls since #balancetonporc went viral. Emmanuelle Piet, head of the
French Collective against Rape said the group's hotline had
"exploded".
Feminists
like De Haas hope that many of the women who shared their stories will dare to
show their faces at a November 25 rally to coincide with the International Day
for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The Odoxa
poll showed most women -- and a small majority of men -- supporting the
#balancetonporc hashtag.
But a
sizeable minority -- 38 percent of women and 47 percent of men -- said they
feared it would serve as a conduit for "unverified complaints that can
lead to all sorts of abuses".
And as with
other social media campaigns that mobilise millions online, the proof of its
effectiveness will be in whether it succeeds in changing behaviour in the real
world.
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