Catcalling might soon be illegal in France

Like Nigeria and most countries where patriarchy is upheld, France has a massive catcalling and sexual harassment problem. The problem of women being sexually and physically harassed under the guise of flirtation is such a major problem that it was one of the campaign points from French President Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign.

France’s minister for Gender Equality Marlene Schiappa is in charge of drafting this new law and she is personally motivated by experience. She recounted on an interview with American media company NPR that as a teenager in Paris, she had to always go out in the company of at least one other person or risk being violently catcalled or even physically manhandled by men who either got more violent if she refused or passed it off as harmless fun. In the law she is drafting, she is pushing for on the spot fines for offenders, hoping that the immediacy of punishment will help wean French men of the entitlement that spurs them to aggressively pursue women even when they express explicitly that they are not interested.

While the law is still being debated and drafted, it is building on a law passed in 2012 that made office harassment for men and women a criminal offence and put punishments for offenders. We’ll just have to wait and see if Macron actually follows through on Schiappa’s new draft and signs it into law.

 

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