No, it wasn’t just one rogue prosecutor. As the article mentions, there was ANOTHER recent case in which a 22-year-old man was tried on the more serious charge of raping an 11-year-old, and the man was ACQUITTED because the prosecution couldn’t prove the sexual conduct wasn’t consensual (I include a link to Le Monde with the whole story at the end here). It ended up a he said/she said situation in court. The man had denied any relationship with the girl until he learned she’d gotten pregnant and gave birth. Then he said the sex was consensual, and her actions were scrutinized in court just like any adult rape victim’s would be. They said things like she wasn’t upset afterwards. They brought up she went with him willingly, though she said she had no idea what he’d do. She said he forced himself on her, but in the end, his claims that he didn’t and that she lied about her age to him (which she denied) convinced the jurors. He got off! The prosecution said perhaps they should have just charged him with the lesser offense, but they believed he forcibly raped her. And he got off just because sex between a 22-year-old and an 11-year-old ISN’T statutory rape in France today.
From Le Monde on how the case stirred outrage:
Suspended on the subject, Marlene Schiappa, Secretary of State for Equality between Women and Men, announces quickly that the government is working on a bill on “the irrefutable presumption of non-consent of children “ . Which means that below a certain age, an act of penetration of a minor would automatically be considered by the courts as rape. The irrebuttable presumption does not exist in criminal law.
About twenty associations call to protest in front of the Ministry of Justice, politicians comment extensively on the case - “to vomit” , seemed to summarize the president of the region Ile-de-France, Valerie Pécresse. The debate begins on the delicate question of the age of sexual consent. At what age is a minor mature enough to accept or refuse sexual intercourse with a person of full age: 13 years? 15 years? Can we really set an age limit?...
At the end of March, a bill against gender-based and sexual violence will be presented to the Council of Ministers. Among the measures planned, Secretary of State Marlène Schiappa proposes setting the age of non-consent for minors at 15 years . The public prosecutor, François Molins, suggests him, 13 years.
French law is clear :
“code pénal-art 227-25 : “Le fait, par un majeur, d’exercer sans violence, contrainte, menace ni surprise une atteinte sexuelle sur la personne d’un mineur de quinze ans est puni de cinq ans d’emprisonnement et de 75 000 euros d’amende.”)”
It says that “the fact that an adult has sex [even] without violence, constraint, threat or surprise with a minor less than 15 year old is punished by five years in prison and 75 k€ fine”. It means there is penalty with or ***without*** the minor’s consent because the law has decided de facto that a minor under 15 can NOT consent (because if there were consent, the law above would have no use, right?), no matter any obfuscating legaleese tries to spin things otherwise.
So the law arsenal already exists against pedophilia. Sensationalistic miscarriages of justice don’t change the fact the law already exists, it would be like saying because OJ Simpson has been acquitted that there is no law against domestic violence and murder in the US. Adding more laws while the existing laws are not even enforced will improve nothing.
BTW, “le Monde” (dubbed l’Immonde) is as a lying leftist untrusworthy newspaper (but I repeat myself) as the NYT or the WaPoo. And Mediapart is headed by an unrepentant Troskyste. So anything from them should be considered guilty before innocent.