The publication in France in January last year of La Familia grande, a book in which the jurist and law lecturer Camille Kouchner exposed how her twin brother, when a young teenager in the late 1980s, suffered repeated sexual abuse, including rape, by their stepfather, prompted an extraordinary national awakening to the extent of child sex abuse and incest, and the deep trauma caused to victims.
In France, the term incest applies to sexual relations between family members, including those not related by blood.
The book, which was an instant bestseller (available in English under the title The Familia Grande: a memoir), is the story not only of the shocking assaults upon Kouchner’s brother, but also the code of silence of the many who were aware of it, an omerta kept in and around a wealthy, well-connected and professionally high-flying family. After its publication, the stepfather, Olivier Duhamel, a prominent French political scientist, constitutional expert and media commentator, resigned from all his posts (including as head of the foundation that manages the prestigious Sciences Po school in Paris, and as president of the elite social club, Le Siècle), and withdrew from public life.
But while the book attracted huge attention in part because of the background of the family (the father of Camille Kouchner and her twin brother is Bernard Kouchner, a former government minister and a founder of NGO Médecins Sans Frontières, while their maternal aunt is the late French actress Marie-France Pisier), it immediately sparked an outpouring on social media of accounts by victims of incest from all walks of life, using the hashtag #MeTooInceste.
The avalanche of the #MeTooInceste posts, and the accompanying media attention, prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to react within weeks of the publication, when he paid homage to Camille Kouchner’s “courage” and promised a raft of measures to better protect children from sexual abuse, and incest in particular. One of Macron’s initiatives was the creation of an “independent commission on incest and sexual violence towards children”, the CIIVISE, which became operational in March 2021.
In September 2021 it launched an appeal for victims of child sexual abuse to come forward with their personal accounts, inviting the submissions either in writing, by phone, via a dedicated website page, in person at the CIIVISE, or at one of the regular public meetings the commission organised in towns and cities across the country.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The results of that national consultation were detailed in a report published on September 21st , exactly one year after it was launched.
The commission received 16,414 individual accounts from people who detailed sexual abuse they had endured when they were minors, and, in most cases, the lasting consequences on their lives as adults.
The average age of those who came forward was 44, and the vast majority – 90 percent – were women, while 25 percent of respondents said the abuse occurred when they were aged less than five-years-old.
The CIIVISE estimates that around 160,000 children fall victim to sexual abuse in France each year, and that around 5.5 million men and women – equivalent to ten percent of the adult population – suffered sexual abuse as a child.
In its report of the national consultation published this month, the commission underlined the “extreme suffering” of victims, and the “lifelong consequences” it leaves, from psychological trauma to problems with eating, addictions and suicidal impulses. More than 80 percent of those questioned said they believed the abuse has affected their mental health, and 50 percent believed it had consequences on their physical health.
Incest is still minimised or, at least, not understood.
Among the women who took part in the consultation, 50 percent spoke of having developed eating problems, and almost 40 percent of men said they had problems of addiction. Just 11 percent of women and 15 percent of men said they had not developed significant behavioural problems.
“What is very marking is what we at the commission call ‘the perpetual present [sic] of sufferance’,” commented Édouard Durand, a magistrate specialised in the protection of children at risk, and who is co-president of the commission. “It is not the past, an unpleasant memory; it is there, in daily life, right up to the most intimate [aspects of] life. We know the symptoms of psychological trauma. On the other hand, the impact upon affective life and sexuality is less documented. It was important to be able to show it in a very clear manner.”
Among those who broached the subject, there were people who suffered gynaecological or erectile problems, or who reported an absence of sexual relations. Almost 50 percent of respondents said the abuse had detrimental effects on their schooling, while around 40 percent said it had caused difficulties in their professional lives.
“Society has progressively changed its attitude towards incest,” noted Durand. “It has accepted that it was not a private problem but a problem of public health and order on a large scale. But in looking at the impact of this violence, and the gravity of the suffering for children and the adults they become, one recognises the extra step that society must take: incest is still minimised or, at least, not understood. One cannot tell victims to ‘move on to other things’, because that is impossible for them.”
Recommendations
In March this year, the commission came up with 20 recommendations for reinforcing child protection structures, and as parliament now prepares to debate the 2023 state and social security budgets, the CIIVISE has selected five measures which would require the provision of dedicated funding. These are: that all those who have professional contact with children should be organised to systematically seek out signs of abuse; the creation of a structure to advise and support those same professionals; the provision of extra means for the judicial police services specialised in cybercriminal activity; the guarantee of the availability of specialised care for victims, and the organisation of a large-scale, national campaign against sexual abuse of children (the last dates back to 2002).
Some of the commission’s recommendations have now been accepted by the government. On the day the CIIVISE report was published this month, the junior minister for children, Charlotte Caubel, announced in French daily Le Figaro the launching of “a major awareness campaign at the beginning of 2023 to allow adults to be conscious of the reality of this phenomenon [of child abuse]”. She also pledged the creation of “a support unit for all professionals who have suspicions [that a child is the victim of sexual abuse] or who are faced with revelations”. Finally, she indicated that she and the justice minister “wish” to withdraw the principle of the exercise of parental authority from any parent who is convicted of incestuous violence upon their child.
During his campaign for re-election this year, Emmanuel Macron promised that the recommendations made by the CIIVISE would be “followed by action” and spoke of creating “a true French culture of protection” for minors.
In its report this month, CIIVIE co-president Édouard Durand underlined: “What is needed now is a [parliamentary] vote in favour of funding for the protection of children and the fight against the impunity of paedo-criminals. What costs society money for is allowing perpetrators to rape with impunity.”
Durand also gave a warning: “Thanks to the perseverance of feminist associations, [and] to literature, to social media, to the independent commission on sexual abuse in the church (the CIASE), there is a furrow that has been slowly ploughed over the past 20 years. A window has opened and very powerful forces want to close it; we must keep it open.”
But there has been discord even within the commission. In January, a psychiatrist specialised in treating adolescents, Guillaume Bronsard, resigned from the commission, denouncing the “preponderant place” given to “a militant feminist posture”. Two months later, Caroline Rey-Salmon, an expert in forensic medicine, also left it, unhappy with the suggestion that the medical profession should be legally required to systematically report evidence of sexual violence.
“We have the bias of going out to look for child victims, to get them out and to protect them, with the premise that when a child reveals violence, they must be immediately protected,” declared Durand. “In this position of protection, one can be opposed to those I call ‘the guardians of the temple’, who will interpose misinterpreted principles between the child and the law. I respect the presumption of innocence, but it had never been conceived by humans to protect a system of impunity.”
The commission will publish a definitive report on its findings, conclusions and recommendations in November 2023. In the meantime, it will continue with its research and to receive and record the accounts of victims.
One of its many objectives is to produce an estimation of the financial cost to society of child sex abuse, as has already been attempted for domestic violence. An independent study (joined by academics from the public policies evaluation laboratory of the Paris political sciences school) on the cost to French society of domestic “inter-partner violence”, and “its consequences on children”, and which included medical, judicial and employment costs among others, found that in 2012 the total amounted to 3.6 billion euros (as summarised, in French and English, in a report by the French public health agency, Santé publique France).
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse