Activists call on France to endorse a consent-based rape definition across the entire European Union

PARIS — Activists wearing masks depicting President Emmanuel Macron urged France on Thursday to change its position and endorse a law proposed by the European Union that would define rape as sex without consent in the bloc’s 27 countries.

The demonstrators gathered in downtown Paris on the eve of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to apply pressure on the French head of state.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed legislation last year to make consent-based rape laws consistent across the bloc, and to introduce a common set of penalties.

While other details of the directive, which include a proposal for the criminalization of female genital mutilation and cyberbullying, seem to gather a consensus among the 27 member countries, the definition of rape based on the lack of consent is deeply divisive.

According to Human Rights Watch, only 13 EU member states use consent-based definitions to criminalize rape. Many others still require the use of force, or threat, to mete out punishment. France, for instance, considers that a rape can be considered to have occurred when “an act of sexual penetration or an oral-genital act is committed on a person, with violence, coercion, threat or surprise.”

“I’m here today because it infuriates me to see that our criminal law is not up to the task, that today it allows for rape to happen,” said Sirine Sehil, a criminal law attorney. “It does not take into account our consent, our will, what we, as women, want.”

The Paris action, where a banner said “Only yes means yes,” was organized by groups including nonprofit organization Avaaz and the European Women Lobby, an umbrella group of women’s nongovernmental associations in Europe.