The backlash was immediate. Within seconds of her coronation as Miss France in late 2023, Eve Gilles was being hit by a tsunami of online hate. The death threats would come later. The online mob were appalled by the 20-year-old’s slight physique and, especially, her cropped pixie haircut. For the first time in more than a century, the Miss France tiara had been placed upon the head of a contestant with short hair. “Next year they’ll pick a bald man,” moaned an outraged armchair warrior.
Gilles, a 20-year-old student, became an unlikely focal point for the country’s raging culture wars. On one side, her win was sneeringly cast as a “victory for diversity”; on the other she was held up as a rather unlikely icon of the #MeToo era, with her supporters suggesting that her win signalled that France was finally ready to embrace a movement that had hitherto struggled to gain momentum.
The furore around Gilles was proof, if any were needed, that France still has work to do on gender equality. Relatively few high-profile cases of sexual misconduct have been prosecuted since the #MeToo movement arrived in France in 2017, despite the growing number of victims who have come forward with testimony of abuse.
Activists are hoping that could finally be about to change, following the conviction last week of the formerly revered actor, Gérard Depardieu, for sexually assaulting two women. His trial was viewed as an important test of how French society and the film industry were addressing allegations of sexual violence. Lawyers for his victims believe that a wider reckoning is under way.
“I’m optimistic by nature,” says Carine Durrieu Diebolt, who represented the 54-year-old set dresser who was targeted by Depardieu. “This was a historic verdict. It shows that mentalities are slowly changing, that artists are no longer treated with impunity.”
But that optimism is not universally shared. Yéléna Mandengué, a lawyer and member of the #NousToutes feminist organisation, points out that Depardieu was not in court for the verdict as he’s currently shooting another film in Portugal.
“In places like the US, an actor accused of such serious crimes, never mind one who has actually been convicted, would be cancelled. The rich and famous are treated differently here. We call it the French exception. It comes down to our elitist perception of the arts. We don’t want our reputation to be tarnished internationally by these allegations, so perpetrators are protected”
The Depardieu sentencing came just months after France was horrified and traumatised by the trial of Dominique Pelicot, the retired electrician who was convicted of raping his former wife while she was drugged and unconscious, and inviting dozens of men to the family home to abuse her. Gisèle Pelicot‘s ordeal highlighted shortcomings in French law, most notably the lack of explicit consent in the legal definition of rape, prompting calls for urgent reform.
Last month, the lower house of parliament responded by passing legislation expanding the definition of rape to include non-consensual sex. The bill has yet to be debated by the senate, before being returned to the lower house for a final vote.
While think tanks such as the London-based Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute argue that the Pelicot case has had a profound impact on public understanding of sexual violence and domestic abuse, Mandengué believes that legal reforms can only go so far, and fail to address deeply entrenched cultural perceptions. She says attitudes will not truly evolve unless there is a wider political will to bring about change.
“The government only discusses sexual violence when it serves its political agenda,” she says. “Look at our prime minister. In any other country, he would be forced to resign. Instead, he’s defended by the president.”
An embattled François Bayrou has been at the centre of a widening controversy over decades-long allegations of sexual and physical abuse at a school in his home region in southwestern France. The former education minister denied having covered up the abuse when he appeared before a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, claiming that he had only been made aware of the allegations through the media. Bayrou’s wife had worked at Notre-Dame de Bétharram and several of his children were educated there. One of his daughters now says she was beaten by a priest with links to the school.
A survey published just last week found that 70 per cent of women said they had personally experienced sexism in the workplace
A separate parliamentary report, published in April after a five-month inquiry, also makes for grim reading. It found that abuse was “systemic, endemic and persistent” across the French entertainment industry, adding that attitudes were “barely evolving” with women and children still being “routinely preyed on”. Sandrine Rousseau, the Green Party MP who led the commission, says the Depardieu conviction is nevertheless an important milestone that illustrates that “nobody is above the law”.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many women might disagree. A survey published just last week found that 70 per cent of women said they had personally experienced sexism in the workplace, with nearly a third of respondents saying they’d subsequently changed how they dressed as an avoidance strategy, or limited time spent alone with certain colleagues.
Another woman who decided to alter how she dressed, or at least how she presented herself to her hundreds of millions of social media followers, took the stand in a Paris courtroom on Tuesday. Hours before Kim Kardashian gave emotional testimony about being held at gunpoint by a gang who stole millions of euro worth of her belongings, a judge asked her stylist if the reality TV star had put herself in danger by publishing images of herself online.
Absolutely not, said Simone Harouche. “Just because a woman wears jewellery, that doesn’t make her a target. That’s like saying that because a woman wears a short skirt, she deserves to be raped.”
As for Miss France 2024, she says she still dreams of one day representing her country at Miss Universe despite the death threats, and the fact that she’s once again being pilloried by online haters, this time for dating an older man.
