A drink in a bar or a nightclub, and then nothing. No more memories, just the blurry feeling the next day that something happened. A rape. Marie was “lucky”. This evening of October 30, at O’Sullivans, a bar in the Pigalle district in Paris, she “Collapsed to the ground after having drunk her drink”, says the friend who accompanied him. The young woman in her twenties thinks she was drugged without her knowledge, which will be confirmed by analyzes carried out a few hours later in the hospital: intoxication with GHB, the drug known as the rapist.
Marie’s case is far from isolated. Since the start of the school year, feminist collectives have received many stories of this type. All of them describe an immutable scenario. An outing with friends. A drink or two. Hot flashes, dizziness, the urge to vomit. Then the black hole. A wake-up call at home or at a stranger’s house. And that feeling of shame mixed with guilt.
On social networks, the #balancetonbar movement, launched in Belgium in early November, has spread across many countries (#denunciatubar in Spain and Colombia or even #calloutyourbar UK). “There isn’t a single place where women are safe, supports Dounia Salimi, 26, co-creator of the first Instagram pages in Belgium and France. My cousin was drugged in a bar in Spain, me it was by a friend of the promotion in Paris, my friend at the origin of the movement in Belgium suspects a manager of a Brussels bar. “
In France, Instagram accounts have been launched in Paris, Lille, Toulouse, Nantes, Montpellier, Grenoble, where testimonies are pouring out on cases of intoxication and sexual violence suffered in bars. This liberation of speech gave rise to new keywords, like #metooghb and #doublepeineghb, taking the name of one of the most widely used substances.
Complaints in several cities
On November 8, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for “administration of harmful substances”, currently gathering eleven complaints, including that of Marie. Entrusted to the police station of 18e district, it concerns events that have occurred “During October, beginning of November”, in establishments in Pigalle, reports to World the Paris prosecutor’s office.
“Toxicological analyzes are in progress or will be done soon”, further specifies the prosecution. These analyzes, carried out on the hair of the complainants, must be carried out one month after the facts, for results returned two months after the sample – the GHB has a short lifespan, it remains between six and eight hours in the blood and ten at three o’clock in the urine. According to the law against sexual and gender-based violence, passed in 2018, drug use during rape or sexual assault constitutes an aggravating circumstance. Moreover, administering a harmful substance to a person with the aim of sexually assaulting him is in itself an offense, punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment and 100,000 euros fine.
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