Thread by @HalaGorani

The latest sex abuse scandal to rock France seems to be reinforcing one important thing: French public opinion reaction to stories of sexual abuse is changing in significant ways. (A thread)
nytimes.com/2021/01/05/wor…

I noticed it first about ten years ago, some years before the #metoo movement, when rape allegations were made against then IMF-Director Dominique Strauss-Khan.

At the time, DSK was one of the most popular politician in France and widely expected to become the next president.

But something shifted, imperceptibly at first, in the French collective consciousness: The notion that a public person’s private affairs should have no bearing on their public career was starting to dissolve.

He was acquitted but lost his career. And faced more accusations in the years that followed.

Fast forward to #metoo and other stories of abuse have since shaken the country in ways I couldn’t have imagined only a few years ago.

When the head of a major French publishing house Vanessa Springora wrote about being groomed and abused as a teen by feted French novelist Gabriel Matzneff, it caused revulsion and soul-searching throughout the country. (Read her fantastic book “Consent”)

But at the time of the alleged abuse, in the 80’s, Matzneff was not just known to seduce under-aged girls. He was sometimes openly celebrated for it. He wrote with impunity of his many conquests.

Today, he has been completely shunned by the French public.

The recent allegations incest against Olivier Duhamel, a huge star of the French intelligentsia, have created similar shockwaves. Camille Kouchner, daughter of MSF founder and frm minister Bernard Kouchner, writes in a book that Duhamel sexually abused her twin brother for years.

When French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut appeared on television appearing to minimize the alleged crime, implying that consent is possible in such cases, the full weight of the internet came crashing down on him. This too, is not something I could've foreseen only a few yrs ago

The crimes haven’t changed since they allegedly occurred. The laws haven’t changed, either. But the people of France certainly have.