A French police officer was ordered to pay 1,000 euros, or about $ 1,000 after describing a woman who filed a complaint for sexual assault as a “whore”, a source close to the case said on Saturday.
In a case which sparked the indignation in France, the woman, then 34, filed a complaint in a police station in Paris in February 2022, saying that she had been attacked in the street after several glasses during An evening.
A male policeman later called him on the phone to ask him to come back and finish the documents. After leaving a message – thinking that he had hung up – he started insulting him, calling it “whore” three times.
The case sparked the indignation of activists, who declared that he reflected the number of police treated Victims of sexual violence.
French statistics in 2017 have shown that more than 80,000 adult women face rape or attempted rape each year in the country, but only 10% file a complaint, reported the Associated Press.
But like many countries around the world, the #MeToo movement has caused social and government changes in recent years. The number of cases reported in sexual violence has more than doubled from 2016 to 2023, according to the French newspaper The world.
In a rare commentary, the Minister of the Interior of the Interior at the time, Gerald Darmanin, said that the 33 -year -old officer should be dismissed.
The policeman was accused of “non -public insult because of the genre”. But a French court erased the police officer of criminal responsibility in January 2024. During the trial, the officer apologized and said that he had to beg Darmanin to keep his job.
The woman then appealed the decision, asking the judicial authorities to recognize the misconduct of the agent.
On January 30, the Paris Court of Appeal reassured the woman and said the police should pay him 1,000 euros, according to a copy of the decision obtained by AFP.
The police officer apologized several times for his remarks, but insisted that they were only the expression of his embarrassment with procedural irregularities.
In its decision, the Court concluded that “it cannot be disputed that the term” the whore “(whore) repeated several times is offensive and was, for the context, intended for (the applicant) because of his sex “.
Woman’s lawyer Arie Alimi said that it was necessary to “go to the end” to draw attention to the bias “to victims of sexual and gender violence and to the victims of the police”.
A police lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
In the most recent case of large -scale sexual violence in the country, the former husband of Gisèle PelicotWho admitted drugs and rape it several times for almost a decade and invite dozens of other men to attack it also, was found guilty of aggravated rape.
Forty-nine men that Dominique Pelicot brought home to attack his wife was also sentenced in the same historic trial.
The case of Pelicot triggered demonstrations across France, and there was hope among certain demonstrators that the case could lead to changes in controversial French laws governing sexual consent.
