Face the #metoo of the armies, Sébastien Lecornu decided to summon the most powerful administrative tool at his hand by ordering a report from the general inspectorate of the armies, which will be unveiled at the end of May. The minister’s reaction demonstrates awareness: faced with international conflicts, in Europe, Africa and elsewhere, we need a strong, exemplary army, at the forefront of the Republic.
However, the cases of sexual, sexist and racist violence reported reveal profound weaknesses: the derisory nature of the judicial sentences and administrative sanctions compared to common law reveals obviously structural problems. There is no justification for victims, with diverse profiles, to be forced to resign, while criminally recognized attackers remain in the army.
The testimonies collected in particular by the deputy [Renaissance] Laetitia Saint-Paul reveals a chilling singularity: too often, a higher authority becomes an element of the process, generally for having “covered up” acts in one form or another, by attenuating their scope, or even by giving promotions to their authors . Therefore, these hierarchical interferences give a systemic dimension to the problem, and any solution focused solely on the victim-aggressor pair will remain de facto insufficient.
The answers must be structural, therefore focusing here on the very heart of the institution and its relationships with justice, with the law, and with everything that establishes social relations within it. How can we not see that the absence of diversity at the highest level of command has real impacts? According to the High Committee for the Evaluation of the Military Condition, women represent 20% of officers up to the rank of commander. Then this proportion collapses to 10% for colonels and generals (including the figures for the health services and the armaments commission, where women are proportionally over-represented). The justification by “motherhood” seems outdated. Also, the administrative response can only be a first step.
Unanswered questions
The report of the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces must first make it possible to objectify the facts. Constructing appropriate responses requires seeing clearly. In March and April, I addressed a series of precise questions within the framework of parliamentary control: quantification of sexual, sexist and racist violence, comparison with the activity of the Thémis cell [créée en 2014 pour le signalement des faits de violences sexuelles, sexistes et de discrimination], number and typology of administrative sanctions, by body, triggering by superiors of article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, number of victims having left the institution before the end of their contract… I also questioned the Minister of justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, on the number of criminal compositions (avoiding adversarial proceedings) or even on the criminal sanctions imposed. These questions remain, to date, unanswered.
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