France blocks move to include cousins in definition of ‘incest'
Nine out of ten French people want to extend the legal definition of incest to include cousins, but the move is being blocked by ministers fearful of igniting religious tensions.
The government is said to be concerned that if it changed the incest law, it would also have to outlaw cousin marriages, which are rare in France as whole but common in some communities.
A poll by Ipsos for Face à l'Inceste, the anti-incest association, found that 93 per cent of respondents wanted the notion to include cousins along with parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles.
The poll was commissioned as part of a campaign to tighten laws on incest in a country that has been notoriously slow to address what was long a taboo subject.
The word incest did not appear the criminal law code until 2010. Incest is now considered an aggravating factor in rape or sexual assault cases, but there is still no blanket ban on it, as there is in the UK.
However, marriages involving parents, grandparents, siblings and aunts and uncles are outlawed.
Critics say the country's ambiguous approach to incest has caused widespread damage, and studies show that about one in ten French people are victims. Fathers and fathers-in-law constitute 32.7 per cent of the perpetrators, according to research in 2020, followed by uncles on 17.9 per cent.
Face à l'Inceste says that up to 20 per cent of incestuous assaults are committed by cousins.
Corentin Legras, a researcher at the School of Higher Social Sciences Studies, agreed, saying sexual assaults by older cousins were widespread, notably during family get-togethers.
France's Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children seized upon these findings to press the government to include cousins within the legal definition of incest.
But ministers refused. Legras said: 'A relationship cannot be incestuous if there is a possibility of marriage afterwards.'
Ministers are said to be reluctant to ban cousin marriages, which remain common in France's Romany community, which is estimated at up to 350,000 people.
Cousin marriages are also occasional among Muslim immigrant populations and rare but not unheard-of among traditional Catholics.
Christine Boutin, 81, who was housing minister between 2007 and 2009 in the centre-right government of the day, is married to Louis, her first cousin, for instance. She angrily rejects suggestions that their relationship is incestuous. They have three children.
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