Latest news with #metoo
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Harassment by Ubisoft executives left female staff terrified, French court hears
Three former executives at the French video game company Ubisoft used their position to bully or sexually harass staff, leaving women terrified and feeling like pieces of meat, a French court has heard. The state prosecutor Antoine Haushalter said the trial of three senior game creators for alleged bullying, sexual harassment and, in one case, attempted sexual assault was a 'turning point' for the gaming world. It is the first big trial to result from the #MeToo movement in the video games industry, and Haushalter said the case had revealed 'overwhelming' evidence of harassment. In four days of hearings, female former staff members variously described being tied to a chair, forced to do handstands, subjected to constant comments about sex and their bodies, having to endure sexist and homophobic jokes, drawings of penises being stuck to computers, a manager who farted in workers' faces or scribbled on women with marker pens, gave unsolicited shoulder massages, played pornographic films in an open-plan office, and another executive who cracked a whip near people's heads. The three men deny all charges. Haushalter said 'the world of video games and its subculture' had an element of 'systemic' sexism and potential abuse. He said the #MeToo movement in the gaming industry had allowed people to speak out. 'It's not that these actions were not punished by the law before. It's just that they were silenced, and from now on they will not be silenced,' he said. Ubisoft is a French family business that rose to become one of the biggest video games creators in the world. It has been behind several blockbusters including Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and the children's favourite Just Dance. The court in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis, heard that between 2010 and 2020 at Ubisoft's offices in Montreuil, east of Paris, the three executives created an atmosphere of bullying and sexism that one member of staff likened to a 'boys' club'. One alleged victim told the court: 'The sexual remarks and sexual jokes were almost daily.' Tommy François, 52, a former vice-president of editorial and creative services, is accused of sexual harassment, bullying and attempted sexual assault. He was alleged once to have tied a woman member of staff to a chair with tape, pushed the chair into a lift and pressed a button at random. He was also accused of forcing one woman wearing a skirt to do handstands. 'He was my superior and I was afraid of him. He made me do handstands. I did it to get it over with and get rid of him,' one woman told the court. At a 2015 office Christmas party with a Back to the Future theme, François allegedly told a member of staff that he liked her 1950s dress. He then allegedly stepped towards her to kiss her on the mouth as his colleagues restrained her by the arms and back. She shouted and broke free. François denied all allegations. Another witness told the court that during a video games fair in the US, François 'grabbed me by the hair and kissed me by force'. She said no one reacted, and that when she reported it to her human resources manager she was told 'don't make a big thing of it'. The woman said that later, in a key meeting, another unnamed senior figure told staff he had seen her 'snogging' François, 'even though he knew it had been an assault'. She said François called her into his office to show her pictures of his naked backside on his computers and on a phone. 'Once he drew a penis on my arm when I was in a video call with top management,' she said. The woman said these incidents made her feel 'stupefied, humiliated and professionally discredited'. François told the court he denied all charges. He said there had been a 'culture of joking around'. He said: 'I never tried to harm anyone.' Serge Hascoët, 59, Ubisoft's former chief creative officer and second-in-command, was accused of bullying and sexual harassment. The court heard how at a meeting of staff on an away day he complained about a senior female employee, saying she clearly didn't have enough sex and that he would 'show how to calm her' by having sex with her in a meeting room in front of everyone. He was alleged to have handed a young female member of staff a tissue in which he had blown his nose, saying: 'You can resell it, it's worth gold at Ubisoft.' The court heard he made guttural noises in the office and talked about sex. Hascoët was also alleged to have bullied assistants by making them carry out personal tasks for him such as going to his home to wait for parcel deliveries. Hascoët denied all the charges. He said: 'I have never wanted to harass anyone and I don't think I have.' The former game director Guillaume Patrux, 41, is accused of sexual harassment and bullying. He was alleged to have punched walls, mimed hitting staff, cracked a whip near colleagues' faces, threatened to carry out an office shooting and played with a cigarette lighter near workers' faces, setting alight a man's beard. He denied the charges. The panel of judges retired to consider their verdict, which will be handed down at a later date.
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Trump spurs global rollback on the rights of women and girls
A global rollback of women's rights was already underway before US President Donald Trump took office. But now it's in hyper speed. Trump's actions, including his broad slashing of international aid, both cause direct harm and encourage other world leaders to walk away from women's rights. For years, most mainstream politicians saw advancing the rights of 'women and girls' as a priority, even if the reality did not always match the rhetoric. Doing so often seemed uncontroversial and bipartisan, including in the UK. Foreign Secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie in 2014 opened an initiative on sexual violence in armed conflict. The same year, the UK's coalition government held a 'Girl Summit' promising global leadership to end child marriage and female genital mutilation. In 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that girls' education globally was a top priority. And just last month, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced the appointment of Harriet Harman as UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls. Her job: to champion gender equality worldwide. The 2023 US Agency for International Development (USAID) Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Policy was also unequivocal: 'Gender equality is a human right.' This statement reflects international law – 189 countries, the vast majority of the world, have agreed to be bound by the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The #MeToo movement went viral in 2017. Women around the world shared experiences of gender-based violence and demanded solutions. No one was naïve about the challenge of dismantling centuries of patriarchy, but there was a feeling that women's legitimate demands could not be denied. Yet today we are struggling to slow the loss of rights protections. Trump's attack on women's rights within the US has already gravely damaged respect for reproductive rights and is having a much broader impact on the health and economic rights of women and girls inside the United States. Abortion is now illegal in 12 of the 50 US states, according to the Centre for Reproductive Rights. But his policies' harmful impact stretches far beyond the US. First, there are the aid cuts themselves. The Trump administration has drastically slashed US government funding for international aid, including to programs focused specifically on assisting women. The US had been the world's largest aid donor. Women and girls are dying as a result and many more will die unless these policies are reversed. The Trump administration has also cut crucial research on women's health. They have dismantled parts of the US government that were responsible for developing aid programming, including teams to end gender inequality. The administration has cut over US$500 million in Labor Department grants to uphold international labour standards in 40 countries, including programs to support gender equity and women's participation in the workforce, and to combat human trafficking – which disproportionately impacts women and girls. Women and girls will suffer The Trump administration's broader assault on what it refers to as DEI – efforts to redress inequities based on historical and current forms of racism and other forms of discrimination – is having a deeply chilling impact. Even the word gender seems to be an anathema to the US government, with, for example, the US mission to the UN seeking to remove this word from every UN resolution. Decades of hard work went into helping the aid sector be more cognisant of and responsive to how inequalities intersect. For example, if a population is facing a famine, donor governments and aid groups need specific strategies to get food to women and girls who, among other obstacles, face greater difficulties in accessing distribution centres. During conflicts, women and girls face gendered impacts that often include sexual violence, but also affect their livelihoods, access to education, safety, freedom of movement, and care-giving roles. Forced displacement often exposes them to further violence. These gendered impacts are further complicated when they intersect with other forms of marginalisation, including based on race, ethnicity, age, and disability. The disproportionate impacts that women and girls face exist across the entire range of human rights issues. Trump's crackdown on 'DEI language' makes it harder even to discuss these issues. During the first Trump administration, some countries, led by the Netherlands, filled gaps in international aid created by the already deeply harmful but far less drastic cuts. This time around, we see the opposite. Even among countries pledging to maintain their aid budgets there is no talk of increases, and often the news is much worse. Under US pressure to boost military spending and concerned that their security pact with the US is breaking down, European countries that have seen themselves as leaders on women's rights are sharpening their axes. The UK Labour government cut the already reduced aid budget again, a total reduction since 2021 of more than half, alongside a wave of cuts by other European countries. The Netherlands government is among those cutting. Make no mistake – women and girls suffer as a result. The World Health Organization – one of the UN bodies the US is withdrawing from – warns that the cuts have made the goals on reducing maternal mortality almost unachievable. Funding cuts are closing down some of the few facilities providing emergency medical care to survivors of rape in war zones. Programs around the world that provided life-saving assistance are closing their doors. Trump is leading the way to a cruel new world order in which women and girls are among the first victims. Governments everywhere have a duty to push back. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security
