“Have you seen Borgen?” In France's National Assembly MPs have been busy discussing the hugely popular Danish political drama that has been broadcast this autumn on the Arte channel. It is certainly very topical. In the fifth episode (see video below) of this third series a major debate about prostitution engulfs the nation. Should the customers face criminal penalties? The social democrats think yes. So, too, do the centrists and the right who hold power. But though she is first of all in favour of the idea, the heroine of the hit series, former prime minister Birgit Nyborg, gradually changes her mind, out of a mixture of conviction and political opportunism.
On Wednesday November 27th, French MPs will move from pondering this fictional scenario to debating it for real when they take part in the first reading of a bill “reinforcing the fight against the system of prostitution”. The proposed law has been drawn up by socialist MPs Maud Olivier and Catherine Coutelle who have spent months seeking the support of a large number of socialists, right-wing opposition UMP MPs and centrists, plus also key figures in the radical left Front de gauche and the green party, Europe Écologie – Les Verts.
Indeed, on the surface the proposed law has, unusually, achieved something of a consensus among members of the National Assembly. So in theory it should be voted through by MPs and pass into law without too much difficulty. However in practice, and despite the air of public unity, behind the scenes there are misgivings both in the ranks of the ruling Socialist Party and among opposition MPs, to the extent that when it comes to the actual vote, a number of members may find convenient excuses to make themselves scarce.
This bill – which is not a government-sponsored proposal - aims to abolish the offence of 'passive soliciting' by prostitutes, an offence brought in by then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy in 2003 and one which as a candidate for the presidency in 2012 François Hollande promised to abolish. But this law goes further and switches the criminal burden onto the customer. So, if this law is adopted, a person paying for sex would be liable for a fine of 1,500 euros, which could be doubled in the case of repeat offenders. Offenders would also have to undergo an awareness course on the “circumstances in which prostitution operates, along the model of courses in road safety awareness”.
For the last two weeks a special National Assembly committee has been hearing evidence from members of associations, sociologists, former prostitutes and other expert witnesses. Last week the minister for women's rights Najat Vallaud-Belkacem appeared before the MPs, while this week it has been the turn of justice minister Christiane Taubira, health minister Marisol Touraine and interior minister Manuel Valls.
Just as in the TV series Borgen, the forthcoming public debate on the subject is set to be a lively one on what is a controversial subject. Already a group of “343 bastards” - actually there were just a handful of them – has caused a stir by publicly claiming the right to use “their prostitute”, an approach that has back-fired. “This shameful manifesto has reinforced my convictions,” says socialist MP Sébastien Denaja, who is backing the bill. One Socialist Party official who is opposed to the proposal noted unhappily: “From now on no man can oppose this law.”
Backers of the bill present it as a decisive step towards achieving equality between men and women. “It's not about moralising but respecting human rights, in particular those of women against masculine domination,” says one of the sponsors Maud Olivier, MP for the Essonne département south of Paris. “When you can pay to buy women's bodies, isn't that exploitation, liberalism taken to the extreme?” As far as she is concerned it is impossible to have such a law without reducing the demand for prostitution by criminalising the clients – though she prefers to talk about making customers “responsible”. Olivier says: “Without a law against theft there would be more burglaries! By using his money to pay a prostitute the client encourages the violence and the [trafficking] networks.”
Barbara Romagnan, an MP on the left of the PS who has written an article on her website supporting the proposed law, says: “Even if some people claim to be sex workers, prostitution has changed in a very short period; today virtually all prostitutes are foreign and in a form of slavery.” The MP adds: “In any case I don't want to defend the merchandising of the body. Making customers responsible is saying that it is not right that bodies should be sold for money.”
'Will we be carrying out surveillance on dating sites?'
On the other hand, prostitutes' groups and some large non-governmental organisations whsoe role is to protect the vulnerable in society, such as Médecins du Monde, are worried about a “real social step backwards” that risks making life even more precarious for prostitutes. They claim that in Sweden and in Norway, countries that already criminalise the customers, the “harmful effects of these laws are in every regard similar to those universally noted in France following the introduction in 2003 of the crime of passive soliciting: [prostitutes] distanced from structures that provide care, screening and preventative measures; people getting isolated and more exposed to violence and exploitation; greater stigmatisation, and [reduced] access to rights”. Green senator Esther Benbassa who, like many many of her green parliamentary colleagues with the exception of MP Eva Sas and the president of the party's senate group Jean-Vincent Placé, is strongly opposed to the law, criticises what she calls a “rise in moralising fever” and “social hygiene”.
Within the ranks of the Socialist Party 120 members have nominally signed the motion supporting the proposed law. These include the head of the party's parliamentary group Bruno Le Roux, who was the first to sign. But others who have been asked to sign have so far declined to do so. Some parliamentarians on the Left, who have so far remained discreet on the matter, have been pondering whether the law is appropriate.
One of those who has doubts is Catherine Lemorton, president of the National Assembly's social affairs committee. Questioned by Mediapart, she made her views public on the subject for the first time. “I have found myself a signatory to this law proposal even though I had not given my agreement,” she says with astonishment. “I am obviously against all systems of prostitution and against human trafficking networks. But isn't this law, which is full of good intentions, entering into dangerous territory, if not a minefield? For the sake of giving ourselves a clear conscience, isn't there a risk of making life more precarious for prostitutes?” she asks.
Lemorton continues: “When various groups who share with us a certain vision of society, such as Planning familiale [the family planning association], Médecins du Monde, the Ligue des droits de l'homme [the human rights league], the Ligue de l'enseignement [an umbrella organisation representing thousands of education bodies], the Syndicat de la magistrature [judges' professional organisation], Aides [an HIV/Aids charity] etc oppose the text in its current form, they deserve to be listened to more than they have been up to now!”
Catherine Lemorton, a health specialist known for her battles with pharmaceutical laboratories, believes that the bill as it stands, which also proposes giving former prostitutes a temporary payment of 336 euros a month and a six-month visa for those who are foreign, poses “more questions than answers”. She asks: “How will we check on the clients? If prostitution moves more to the internet, should we put Meetic and other dating sites under surveillance? And then again, how can we verify that a person has really left prostitution? Those groups who are not explicitly charged with fighting against pimping, will they still find themselves trusted with their monitoring work?”

Lemorton adds: “Are we going to send foreign women, who have come out of prostitution, back to their own country without offering them any medical examination at all, for Aids, hepatitis and so on? Finally, giving them a six-month visa, is that really caring for them? It's a bit of a triple whammy: they come here, work as a prostitute, then go home.”
Lemorton's socialist colleague Bernard Roman, who often leads the way on social issues, is also opposed to the bill in its current form. “The criminalisation of the client is a mistake,” he says. “It hides prostitution and prevents people involved being protected. When you bring in prohibition you mustn’t close your eyes to the ways people get round it.” Roman, who is a strong champion of the right of lesbians to get fertility treatment, a proposal that is currently buried, adds: “At the moment I think that we [editor's note, socialists] have a rather narrow view of change in society. We run the risk of being a moralising Left, even an evangelical one.” He has made it clear he will not be present for the vote on the bill.
Another socialist MP who will not vote is Jean-Marie Le Guen, a health specialist. “You don't make laws that create more risks,” he says. “Almost all the prostitutes' organisations are against it. I am not in favour of prohibition.”

Enlargement : Illustration 2


Enlargement : Illustration 3

'Poisoned chalice'

Officially the government backs the bill, as women's rights minister and official government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem confirmed last week. The minister also authorised the bill to be given parliamentary time on November 27th, as its supporters had wanted. This date is, symbolically, just two days after the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Yet while they have not said so in public, a number of ministers, for example Marisol Touraine, budget minister and Hollande ally Bernard Cazeneuve and Alain Vidalies, who is in charge of relations between the government and parliament, are said to have doubts about whether it is appropriate to criminalise the customer.
Historically, the Socialist Party has long been in favour of abolishing prostitution and the idea of criminalising the client was written into party policy back in 2011. However, the subject of prostitution did not make it into the list of 40 campaign pledges on equality issues made by François Hollande, though he did promise to get rid of the crime of “passive soliciting”. In an interview in March 2012, during the campaign, Hollande said that “reflection upon” a possible criminalisation of clients should begin, with the aim of “improving the situation of people who are prostitutes”.
But in keeping with their extreme caution when it comes to social issues, the president and his prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault are in fact treading very warily on this topic. They see potential booby-traps everywhere in the current political climate and government aides describe the prostitution bill as “sensitive, not straightforward and not one of consensus”. For some months they have allowed supporters of the measure to draw up their bill, which for the most part is based on draft legislation that was put forward under the previous government but never voted on. Worried that the debate may become inflamed, the current administration has been waiting to see which way public opinion - and that of the Socialist Party's own MPs - turns.
Bill sponsor Maud Olivier applauds the way that the president has “allowed parliamentarians to take evidence, to draw up a report and to educate colleagues on the issue”. She adds: “And besides, if the law had been put forward by the government itself its cross-party nature would have disappeared.” Yet for many in Parliament, the wait-and-see attitude of the presidency over this issue is yet one more proof that the executive “doesn't drive anything”. One angry socialist MP says: “It's pure Hollande.”
Nonetheless, in recent weeks the government has applied some limits to the proposed law. For example, there is to be no jail time for convicted clients of prostitutes as the authors of the bill had originally planned. Also, to replace the crime of “passive soliciting”, the government asked for a new measure in the “judicial armoury” that would still enable them to “fight against prostitution”. This has led to a compromise in which the crime of passive soliciting will revert to being – as it was prior to 2003 – a minor offence. It is a compromise that does not satisfy many. Some socialist MPs criticise what they call a “law that has become a poisoned chalice”. They have already indicated that they will not be present for the bill's first reading at the end of the month. “There won't be many people in the chamber on the 27th...” notes one MP.
Even among MPs who are favourable to the proposed law there are concerns that a number of key areas, such as details of the new fight against prostitution rings and the exact mechanisms by which former prostitutes will be helped to start new lives, remain unclear. This is despite the recent announcement by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem of a fund of between 10 and 20 million euros to finance the process of helping ex-prostitutes make a fresh start.
In private some other MPs are betting that once the bill has been given its first reading on November 27th, it will end up gathering dust in the offices of the National Assembly or the Senate. And that it will never be voted into law.
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English version by Michael Streeter