Latest news with #Macronist
Local France
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Local France
Macron to launch 'charm offensive' to try and win back the French
The French president will on Tuesday evening take part in a TV debate show, the first in a series of steps designed to be a 'reset' with the French public as he battles with low approval ratings and the loss of his parliamentary majority. In the two-and-a-half hour show on primetime TV, the president will take part in a wide-ranging debate with the following people; union leader Sophie Binet, fitness influencer Tibo InShape, far-right mayor Robert Ménard, lobbyist Agnès Verdier-Molinié, and left-wing essayist Salomé Saqué. Chaired by journalist Gilles Bouleau, the debate is set to cover subjects ranging from immigration to sport in schools, pension to reforms to changes in France's right-to-die laws. Broadcaster TF1 has moved its scheduled programme, the highly popular desert island survival show Koh-Lanta, to make room for the debate. Advertisement It is also believed that Macron will announce a referendum or series of referendums on important questions facing France - possible topics include screen time for children, work legislation and changes to France's right-to-die laws (which are already making their way through parliament). As previously announced , he also wants to set up a citizens' council to look at the organisation of the French school year and whether children get too much holiday time. After several months where the president has seemed more active on the international than the domestic stage, his calendar for the next week includes multiple trips around France to meet members of the public - a trend that his office has indicated is likely to continue over the coming weeks. In addition to attending the annual Choose France business summit in Paris, Macron will also visit Nanterre, Caen and Vendin-le-Vieil this week, with a focus on measures to tackle organise crime as he pays tribute to prison guards. Macronist MP Karl Olive told French newspaper Le Parisien : "The president had donned the captain's armband at European level, and now he's making a comeback in France. I think he's been reinvigorated." Since the loss of his parliamentary majority in disastrous snap elections in summer 2024, Macron has been facing a deadlocked parliament and approval ratings of just 26 percent . In recent weeks early campaigning has stepped up for the next presidential elections, which are now less than two years away. Although Macron himself cannot stand for a third time, he is keen to make use of the final two years of his mandate, and secure a centrist successor. READ ALSO Who's who in the 2027 presidential election race
Local France
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Local France
ANALYSIS: Who will win France's next presidential election?
In France parliamentary and presidential elections are held separately - the chaotic situation in parliament means that fresh parliamentary elections are likely to be held sooner , but presidential elections normally take place on a regular cycle. At this stage there's only one thing that we know for sure about the candidates - Emmanuel Macron will not be among them. The French constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms; Macron - elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2022 - could theoretically stand in 2032, but he cannot stand in 2027. This, combined with the five-year ban on holding office for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, has thrown the race wide open. You can hear the team at The Local discussing the elections with politics expert John Lichfield in the latest episode of the Talking France podcast. Listen here or on the link below Here's a look at the declared and likely candidates; The centre Because of the two consecutive terms rule it has always been clear that Macron cannot stand in 2027, and some centrist candidates have been planning their bids for some time. Chief among these is Macron's former prime minister Edouard Philippe . Since being sacked as PM in 2020 (its widely rumoured for the crime of being more popular than his boss), he hasn't held a political position on the national stage - although he is mayor of Le Havre - but he has created his own centrist party, Horizons, with the apparent aim of running for president. Philippe remains popular with the French public, consistently topping polls of most popular politicians. Macron's current prime minister François Bayrou is also believed to be considering a fourth presidential bid. Bayrou is not a member of Macron's party - he was in fact a centrist before Macron - and has stood for election in 2002, 2007 and 2012, never doing better than third place. Within Macron's own party there are likely to be several candidates, including Gabriel Attal - a 36-year-old Macron protégé who became France's first out gay prime minister in 2024. Attal held a meeting in Saint-Denis last weekend, promising a 'foretaste' of his presidential campaign, although it didn't get into any specific policies. He was especially outspoken over the Le Pen verdict, telling supporters at that meeting "if you steal, you pay". Like Philippe, Attal is popular and consistently polls well with the public, despite his close ties to the unpopular president. Justice minister Gérald Darmanin , a Macronist to the right of the party and a noted hardliner on immigration, is also understood to be considering a bid. Advertisement One interesting aspect is how Macron's party will choose its candidate - Macron himself created the LREM movement in 2016 and since then he has been the party's only presidential candidate. There is therefore no precedent for how the party picks a candidate - whether it will have primaries or rely on an internal selection by party chiefs. The far right Until last week, Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen was the only person who had formally declared her candidacy. However her plans were thrown into disarray when the judges in her embezzlement case imposed a five-year ban on standing for public office - effective immediately. She is still trying to overturn that via the appeals court and an appeal to the Conseil Constitutionnel , but it's far from certain whether she will succeed. If she fails, it's probable that her deputy, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella , will stand as the RN candidate. Some analysts believe that he might actually have a better chance in the polls, but Le Pen herself is quoted as saying he is "not ready". The polemicist-turned-politician Eric Zemmour , who stood in the 2022 elections, is also understood to be considering a second run at the presidency, while Marine's niece Marion Maréchal is also considered a possible candidate for Zemmour's extreme right Reconquête party. The left The left has no shortage of candidates, but a big question is whether there will be a candidate of the 'united left' or not. Advertisement The 2022 presidential elections saw six leftist candidates, none of whom advanced beyond the first round, but since then the four main parties of the left - the centre-left Parti Socialiste, the Greens, the Communists and the hard left La France Insoumise - have been in various coalitions or parliamentary groupings, mostly under the leadership of LFI boss Jean-Luc Mélenchon . Mélenchon himself is understood to be considering a fourth bid, but there are other candidates for a 'united left' candidate. These include the journalist-turned-MP François Ruffin who last weekend put himself forward as a candidate for a combined left bid - the 49-year-old native of north-east France has continued his career as a documentary film-maker since entering parliament, his 2024 film Au Boulot focused on the minimum wage and gig economy workers of France. Raphael Glucksmann - the centre-left candidate in the most recent European elections - is also understood to be considering a bid in the hopes of uniting the left. This week, Philippe Poutou - who has stood three times on a Trotskyist ticket, never getting more than one percent of the vote, announced that he would not stand in 2027 and is instead opening a bookshop in Bordeaux. However his fellow Trotskyist election candidate Nathalie Arthaud may stand again. It's also unclear whether the Communist party would field its own candidate - likely party leader Fabien Roussel - or would be part of a united left grouping. Advertisement Right wing There's also what is left of the old centre-right Les Républicains party - the party of ex presidents including Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, but these days much reduced electorally and lurching sharply to the right. The former LR senator, currently serving in François Bayour's government as interior minister, Bruno Retailleau is understood to be considering a bid. Other likely candidates within the party include MP Laurent Wauquiez and the president of the northern French Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand .
Sky News
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
France needs to sort its political mess - or populist winds blowing from the US will strengthen
Contemplating the turmoil sown by the return of President Trump, nobody could deny that the results of leadership elections in major nations matter to the rest of the world. Take just the members of the G7 - so-called rich, industrialised democracies. Italy elected Giorgia Meloni in 2022, confirming the rise of the far-right. She was not only Italy's first female leader, she was also the first from a neo-fascist party since Mussolini. The arrival of Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer changed the complexion of politics in the US and the UK last year. Germany elected a more hawkish chancellor in waiting this spring. Barring accidents, the next potentially transformative election in what used to be called the "Western alliance" will not be for two years. France is due to elect a new president to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2027. The contest is already plagued by undercurrents of disruption, conflict between politicians and the law, and populism - similar to the fires burning elsewhere in the US and Europe. This week French judges banned the frontrunner to win the presidency from running for office for the next five years. It looked as though they have knocked Marine Le Pen out of the race. Nobody, least of all her, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), knows what is going to happen next in French politics. In opinion polls just over half of the French population, between 54% and 57%, agreed that justice had run its course. "The law is the same for everyone," President Macron declared. After lengthy consideration by a tribunal of three judges, Le Pen and nine other former RN MEPs were found guilty of illegally siphoning off some €4.4m (£3.7m) of funds from the European Parliament for political operations in France, not for personal gain. Le Pen was sentenced to a five-year ban and four years in prison, not to begin before the appeals process had been concluded. Even then that sentence in France would normally amount to two years' house arrest wearing an ankle alarm. 2:52 French presidents, such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been convicted before. Controversy is flaring because Le Pen was given an extra punishment: the immediate ban on running for political office, starting this week. Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, her second in command at RN, likened the ban to a "nuclear bomb" and a "political death penalty". Speaking in L'Assemblee Nationale, of which she is still a member, Le Pen identified herself with Alexei Navalny, the dissident leader murdered in Russia, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the recently imprisoned Turkish opposition leader and mayor of Istanbul. The ban was imposed at the discretion of the chief judge Benedicte de Perthuis, a former business consultant, Francois Bayrou, France's Macronist prime minister admitted he was "troubled" by the verdict. Not surprisingly perhaps from him, since the prosecution is appealing against verdicts in a similar case of political embezzlement, in which Bayrou's party was found guilty but he was acquitted, escaping any possibility of a ban. Bayrou is expected to be a candidate for the presidency. Meanwhile, RN has the power to bring down his government since it is the largest party in the Assembly, with 37%, but was kept out of power by a coalition. Populist forces on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to support Marine Le Pen. Matteo Salvini in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Vladimir Putin 's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov all denounced what they saw as a "violation of democratic norms". Hungary's Viktor Orban said on X "Je suis Marine Le Pen". Orban's post came on the same platform Donald Trump Jr posted that " JD Vance was right about everything", a reference to the US vice president's speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he claimed Europe was silencing populist opposition. President Trump weighed in: "The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech… it is the same 'playbook' that was used against me." Le Pen has called for bans and tough sentences for corrupt politicians from other parties. In France, mainstream commentators are accusing her of hypocrisy and "Trumpisme" for attacking the courts now. They also allege, or rather hope, that RN's anger is endangering Marine Le Pen's drive to make her party respectable with her so-called "wear a neck-tie strategy", designed to dispel the loutish, racist image of her father's Front National. 0:26 For all the protests, justice and politics are now inextricably mixed in France. A ban from political campaigning would be pointless for most convicts, who have no political ambitions. Any suggestion that Le Pen was just being treated like any other citizen was dispelled when it was announced that her appeal would be speeded up to take place next summer. The president of the court de cassation conceded: "Justice knows how to adjust to circumstances... an election deadline in this case." The ban could be lifted in time to give Le Pen a year to stand for the presidency. At this stage, a full acquittal seems unlikely, given the weight of evidence against RN. That is awkward for her and her party because, presumably, she would be campaigning while under house arrest. The best course of action for 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's apparent successor, or "Dauphin", would be to stick with her now. He would gain little if he split RN by insisting she is fatally wounded. 👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈 If she loses her appeal in a year's time, his loyalty and indignation would be likely to boost his candidacy. Conventional wisdom is that without a lift he may be slick, but is too callow and too square to stand a chance of becoming president in 2027. The far right in France is no different from the far right elsewhere - prone to internal rivalries and in-fighting. The craggy intellectual Eric Zemmour came fourth in the first round in the last presidential contest in 2022. Back then he had the support of Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen's flighty niece. The two have since fallen out and may separately bid to carry the far-right torch. Macron is riding high as an international statesman but he is unpopular at home. Even if he wanted to, he cannot stand again because of term limits. His attempts to spawn an heir apparent have failed. The 34-year-old prime minister Gabriel Attal led Ensemble to crushing defeat in last year's parliamentary elections. Current prime minister Bayrou, and former prime minister Edouard Philippe, will probably make a bid for the centre-right vote. Bruno Retailleau, the trenchantly hardline interior minister, looks a stronger candidate for the Gaullist Les Republicains. In the last presidential contest, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the hard-left La France Insoumise came third. He may fancy his chances of getting into the final two in 2027 against a right-wing candidate, unless the Socialists get it together. Or perhaps he may let through two finalists from the right and the extreme right. It is a mess. France and Europe need effective leadership from a French president. The unnecessary judicial suspension of Marine Le Pen's candidacy has simply generated uncertainty. Her supporters are outraged and her foes no longer know who they are fighting against. The French establishment thinks it will all blow over. Just as likely the controversy in France will strengthen the populist winds blowing across the continent and the US.
Sky News
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
France needs to sort its political mess - or else the populist winds blowing from the US will strengthen
Contemplating the turmoil sown by the return of President Trump, nobody could deny that the results of leadership elections in major nations matter to the rest of the world. Take just the members of the G7 - so-called rich, industrialised democracies. Italy elected Giorgia Meloni in 2022, confirming the rise of the far-right. She was not only Italy's first female leader, she was also the first from a neo-fascist party since Mussolini. The arrival of Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer changed the complexion of politics in the US and the UK last year. Germany elected a more hawkish chancellor in waiting this spring. Barring accidents, the next potentially transformative election in what used to be called the "Western alliance" will not be for two years. France is due to elect a new president to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2027. The contest is already plagued by undercurrents of disruption, conflict between politicians and the law, and populism - similar to the fires burning elsewhere in the US and Europe. This week French judges banned the frontrunner to win the presidency from running for office for the next five years. It looked as though they have knocked Marine Le Pen out of the race. Nobody, least of all her, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), knows what is going to happen next in French politics. In opinion polls just over half of the French population, between 54% and 57%, agreed that justice had run its course. "The law is the same for everyone," President Macron declared. After lengthy consideration by a tribunal of three judges, Le Pen and nine other former RN MEPs were found guilty of illegally siphoning off some €4.4m (£3.7m) of funds from the European Parliament for political operations in France, not for personal gain. Le Pen was sentenced to a five-year ban and four years in prison, not to begin before the appeals process had been concluded. Even then that sentence in France would normally amount to two years' house arrest wearing an ankle alarm. 2:52 French presidents, such as Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, have been convicted before. Controversy is flaring because Le Pen was given an extra punishment: the immediate ban on running for political office, starting this week. Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, her second in command at RN, likened the ban to a "nuclear bomb" and a "political death penalty". Speaking in L'Assemblee Nationale, of which she is still a member, Le Pen identified herself with Alexei Navalny, the dissident leader murdered in Russia, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the recently imprisoned Turkish opposition leader and mayor of Istanbul. The ban was imposed at the discretion of the chief judge Benedicte de Perthuis, a former business consultant, Francois Bayrou, France's Macronist prime minister admitted he was "troubled" by the verdict. Not surprisingly perhaps from him, since the prosecution is appealing against verdicts in a similar case of political embezzlement, in which Bayrou's party was found guilty but he was acquitted, escaping any possibility of a ban. Bayrou is expected to be a candidate for the presidency. Meanwhile, RN has the power to bring down his government since it is the largest party in the Assembly, with 37%, but was kept out of power by a coalition. Populist forces on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to support Marine Le Pen. Matteo Salvini in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Vladimir Putin 's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov all denounced what they saw as a "violation of democratic norms". Hungary's Viktor Orban said on X "Je suis Marine Le Pen". Orban's post came on the same platform Donald Trump Jr posted that " JD Vance was right about everything", a reference to the US vice president's speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he claimed Europe was silencing populist opposition. President Trump weighed in: "The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech… it is the same 'playbook' that was used against me." Le Pen has called for bans and tough sentences for corrupt politicians from other parties. In France, mainstream commentators are accusing her of hypocrisy and "Trumpisme" for attacking the courts now. They also allege, or rather hope, that RN's anger is endangering Marine Le Pen's drive to make her party respectable with her so-called "wear a neck-tie strategy", designed to dispel the loutish, racist image of her father's Front National. 0:26 For all the protests, justice and politics are now inextricably mixed in France. A ban from political campaigning would be pointless for most convicts, who have no political ambitions. Any suggestion that Le Pen was just being treated like any other citizen was dispelled when it was announced that her appeal would be speeded up to take place next summer. The president of the court de cassation conceded: "Justice knows how to adjust to circumstances... an election deadline in this case." The ban could be lifted in time to give Le Pen a year to stand for the presidency. At this stage, a full acquittal seems unlikely, given the weight of evidence against RN. That is awkward for her and her party because, presumably, she would be campaigning while under house arrest. The best course of action for 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's apparent successor, or "Dauphin", would be to stick with her now. He would gain little if he split RN by insisting she is fatally wounded. 👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈 If she loses her appeal in a year's time, his loyalty and indignation would be likely to boost his candidacy. Conventional wisdom is that without a lift he may be slick, but is too callow and too square to stand a chance of becoming president in 2027. The far right in France is no different from the far right elsewhere - prone to internal rivalries and in-fighting. The craggy intellectual Eric Zemmour came fourth in the first round in the last presidential contest in 2022. Back then he had the support of Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Marine Le Pen's flighty niece. The two have since fallen out and may separately bid to carry the far-right torch. Macron is riding high as an international statesman but he is unpopular at home. Even if he wanted to, he cannot stand again because of term limits. His attempts to spawn an heir apparent have failed. The 34-year-old prime minister Gabriel Attal led Ensemble to crushing defeat in last year's parliamentary elections. Current prime minister Bayrou, and former prime minister Edouard Philippe, will probably make a bid for the centre-right vote. Bruno Retailleau, the trenchantly hardline interior minister, looks a stronger candidate for the Gaullist Les Republicains. In the last presidential contest, Jean-Luc Melenchon of the hard-left La France Insoumise came third. He may fancy his chances of getting into the final two in 2027 against a right-wing candidate, unless the Socialists get it together. Or perhaps he may let through two finalists from the right and the extreme right. It is a mess. France and Europe need effective leadership from a French president. The unnecessary judicial suspension of Marine Le Pen's candidacy has simply generated uncertainty. Her supporters are outraged and her foes no longer know who they are fighting against. The French establishment thinks it will all blow over. Just as likely the controversy in France will strengthen the populist winds blowing across the continent and the US.
Local France
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Local France
Explained: France's 'consent-based' changes to rape laws
MPs in France's Assemblée nationale have adopted a cross-party bill updating the country's rape laws to include the notion of consent. Here's what happens next, what the changes would mean and why they are happening. What's the change? The bill intends to redefine the article of France's Penal Code covering all sexual assaults, including rape, by redefining them as, 'any non-consensual sexual act'. The text also specifies what is and is not consent, in order to guide investigators and judges. 'Consent is free and informed, specific, prior and revocable. It is assessed in the light of the surrounding circumstances,' the text proposes. 'It cannot be inferred from the victim's silence or lack of reaction alone,' it adds. Advertisement It reiterates that existing terms in the Penal Code must remain, stating 'there is no consent if the sexual act is committed with violence, coercion, threats or surprise'. Justice minister Gérald Darmanin told MPs: 'In future, the perpetrator will have to demonstrate that they have obtained consent, and the investigation will have to focus on what they understood, perceived, and did to ensure the other person's agreement." He insisted the text does not demand positive proof 'as if we were signing a contract". An MPs' report , published in January after a year-long 'information mission' led by Macronist Véronique Riotton and Green Marie-Charlotte Garin, argued that France's rape laws should specifically include, 'the notion of non-consent into the criminal definition of rape and sexual assault'. 'Almost 10 years after the start of the #MeToo movement, and as the Pelicot trial showed once again, the fight against rape culture must be a priority: the fight against rape culture needs a law that is clearer,' the report argued. Article 222-23 of the French Penal Code currently states that any act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, or any oral-genital act by 'violence, constraint, threat or surprise' is rape. Will this become law? The bill was adopted in the Assemblée nationale by 161 votes to 56. The text now passes to the Senate for further examination before returning to the Assembly for a full vote. MPs from Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National voted against the bill, along with members of the Union des Droites pour la République (UDR) group led by Eric Ciotti, and nine of 21 socialist MPs – who had been granted a free vote by their leaders. President Emmanuel Macron had also signalled that he backs a change to the law. As with all new laws or legal changes, if the bill makes it through the various parliamentary changes it will also have to be approved by the Conseil d'Etat, which validates new laws. Advertisement According to the co-rapporteurs, the wording of the bill has already been approved by the Conseil d'État. In its opinion at the beginning of March, the Conseil d'État considered that 'the main contribution of the bill' would be to 'consolidate the advances of case law', which already considers the lack of consent, 'as a key element'. Is it controversial? Despite the clear majority in favour in the first vote, the bill has proved decisive with several groups objecting. 'I believe that … collectively, we have acknowledged that we are moving from a culture of rape to a culture of consent,' said Green MP Marie-Charlotte Garin, one of the co-rapporteurs of the bill prior to the vote. 'We are throwing the first stone at the wall of impunity.' Opponents, however, argued that including non-consent in the criminal definition of rape will lead to the investigation focusing on the victim's attitude. 'What matters is not what the aggressor believes, it's what the victim wants,' insisted Aurore Bergé, the Minister for Gender Equality. 'Consent is everywhere in the legal process, but it is absent from French law,' which, as it stands, 'does not provide sufficient means of punishing aggressors,' Macronist MP Véronique Riotton, the other co-rapporteur of the text. RN's Sophie Blanc, however, said: 'The current definition of rape is already sufficiently precise.' One socialist MP opposing the bill, Céline Thiébault-Martinez, claimed: 'No one can say that this bill will have the expected effect, namely better recognition of the victims'. Advertisement She said that the initiative will 'penalise victims even more'. They would find themselves questioned 'first and foremost about their consent'. But Garin pointed out that introduction of consent into the law 'had never' put the victim 'at the heart of the hearings' in the countries that have done so – notably Spain, Sweden and Denmark. How does this compare to other countries? If the law is adopted, France would hardly be the first country to make this type of legal change. Some 19 European countries have added clear and definitive references to consent into their rape laws. In Spain – where the law took effect in October 2022, four years after the country was shocked by the notorious 'wolf-pack' case, in which a young woman was gang-raped by five men in Pamplona during its bull-running festival – it is known as 'only yes means yes'. Advertisement France is a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, which states, 'consent must be given voluntarily as a result of the free will of the person considered in the context of the surrounding circumstances'. But efforts to implement an EU-wide law preventing sexual violence that inscribed this notion of consent failed, in part because – at the time – France opposed it. Why is this being discussed now? Campaigners and some feminist groups have been pushing for legal changes to the country's rape laws for some time, but the issue of sexual violence and rape culture was brought into the spotlight by the Pelicot trial in 2024. Dominique Pelicot was found guilty of drugging his wife Gisèle and inviting dozens of strangers to the family home in Mazan, southern France, to rape her. Although Dominique admitted his guilt, the defence of many of the co-accused rested on the notion of consent, with several arguing that they since Dominique had given his consent, they did not require Gisèle's consent. READ ALSO ANALYSIS: Will the Pelicot rape trial lead to lasting change in France? A culture of impunity is evident in France, the MPs behind the report said. According to Ministry of Justice figures, just 1,206 rape convictions were handed down in France in 2022 – even though an act of sexual violence is committed every two minutes. At the time of the Pelicot trial, one of the lawyers for the defence had argued against changing the law to include reference to consent. 'Modifying the text on rape to include the notion of consent would have a deleterious effect on criminal law,' the lawyer, who represented four defendants in the trial, said. 'Today – and this is the basis of our criminal law – it is always up to the prosecution to prove that a crime or misdemeanor has been committed. It's up to the prosecution to prove the materiality and intentionality of the offence. 'If we introduce the notion of consent, then the burden of proof will be reversed. It will be up to the accused to prove that he or she had the consent of the person claiming to be the victim. This would be a real revolution in French law and … it would affect the presumption of innocence.'
