France criminalizes sex without explicit consent

tagesschau.de (German)

France now legally defines sex without explicit consent as rape, enacting a "Only Yes Means Yes" principle. This significantly strengthens the country's sexual offense laws. The new law specifies that consent must be free, specific, and revocable, and cannot be inferred from silence or lack of resistance. This legislative change follows extensive debate, notably influenced by the Pelicot rape trial. This legal shift aligns France with other European nations like Sweden and Spain that have similar consent-based rape laws. Germany has had a comparable "No Means No" law since 2018.


With a significance score of 5.6, this news ranks in the top 0.7% of today's 32101 analyzed articles.

Get summaries of news with significance over 5.5 (usually ~10 stories per week). Read by 10,000+ subscribers:


France criminalizes sex without explicit consent | News Minimalist