2.11.2025
Two French policemen, aged 23 and 35, have been charged for raping a 26 year old woman while she was in custody at a court in Bobigny, a town in the northeastern suburbs of Paris. Authorities said on Sunday that a video of the act had been discovered on the mobile phone of one of the officers, who recorded the lawless act.
The officers were initially suspended after the woman accused them of assaulting her earlier this week while she was in custody.
She had been brought before the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office for acts of parental neglect. The men — who were on duty at the Bobigny judicial court — insist that the sex acts overnight Tuesday to Wednesday were consensual.
“The two officers have been charged with rape and sexual assault by persons abusing their authority and remanded in custody,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
On Sunday, Beccuau said a video had been discovered on the mobile phone of one of the officers under investigation.
The video lasts four seconds and shows a sexual act, a source close to the case told AFP.
The decision to charge the police officers was based on “statements made by the complainant, which were corroborated by a number of elements in our case file,” including the video, Beccuau told broadcaster France Info.
“These are all elements that lend credibility to her word,” the prosecutor added.
France enshrines consent in sexual violence law in wake of Pelicot case
The case, Beccuau said, raised questions about “the reality of consent when we consider that this woman was being held in a courthouse detention centre, and was therefore already deprived of her freedom of movement and was in a situation of physical constraint.”
France has been rocked by a series of high-profile rape cases in recent months that have sparked a debate about consent.
French parliament this week adopted a bill defining rape as any non-consensual sexual act, a vote hailed by supporters as a move from “a culture of rape to a culture of consent”.
