More than ten years after a first complaint filed for rape, the Court of Cassation rendered its decision, Wednesday, March 17, in an emblematic case, which pits Julie (an assumed name) against twenty firefighters, rejecting for essentially the demands of the young woman. Yet another step in this sensitive issue, marked by many legal twists and turns and has become the symbol of a “Patriarchal justice” for feminist collectives.
The young woman, now aged 26, asked the courts to reconsider the judgment rendered on November 12, 2020 by the investigative chamber of the Versailles court of appeal, which had confirmed the dismissal of three firefighters in front of the criminal court for “Sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl”. In its decision, the Court of Cassation partially overturns the judgment, but it rejects the requalification as “rape” requested by Julie and her family, who want the defendants to be referred to an assize court.
At the material time, in 2009, the young girl, a minor, was under heavy drug treatment due to frequent attacks of spasmophilia and tetany. Her fragile state of health – she made several suicide attempts – necessitated numerous interventions by the firefighters. It was on this occasion that she met a 20-year-old soldier from the Bourg-la-Reine barracks (Hauts-de-Seine). He is the first to have sex with her, he will be followed by more than ten of his comrades. Sexual relations take place in various places; at the teenager’s home, on the hood of a car, in public toilets …
As it said The world in 2018, more than twenty rescuers, from eleven different barracks, exchanged the phone number of the teenager for two years, between her 13 and 15 years old. In their exchanges, they talk about “Ass plan”, say “That she wanted sex and that she was looking for firefighters”. According to the defense, Julie would have contacted some of them through social networks, a version disputed by the mother of the teenager.
Appeal to the ECHR
In her first complaint, filed in August 2010, Julie accuses several of them of rape. A judicial investigation is open and three firefighters are initially indicted for heads of “Rape and sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor and on a vulnerable person”, and “Rape and sexual assault in a meeting on a 15-year-old minor and on a vulnerable person”. All claim to have never forced the young girl. For ten of them, the investigation failed to show that they knew his age.
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