A viral video of an assault in Paris was greeted as welcome proof of an everyday danger

She was slapped hard in the street in broad daylight by a man whose “animal noises” and wolf-whistles she had dared to challenge, but student Marie Laguerre felt lucky. Being harassed, whistled at and made to feel uncomfortable in the street was not a new experience. Laguerre had complained about it many times before. Nobody took much notice.

But this time she had proof, with video footage of the attack going viral.



“It’s not the first time I’ve had to answer back to harassment, but this time I had the video,” Laguerre said. “I’m lucky to have it because it shows how unsafe I feel. Every woman is a victim of this kind of behaviour … It’s never hitting on someone, it’s always violence. The video shows if you say no you can be hit. It’s a very powerful video.”

Catherine Nicholson, Europe correspondent at France 24 television, knows exactly how Laguerre feels. In a tweet in response to a Guardian headline, Nicholson wrote:

Catherine Nicholson (@ACatInParis) There SHOULD be uproar, this kind of thing is common and has been for years.



I’ve been:

Kicked

Spat on

Grabbed

Chased & shouted at for not saying “thank you” to a “compliment”

And more...



All in broad daylight, in different neighbourhoods.



May the uproar (& change) continue. https://t.co/fQAhQgfke4

“I’ve had this almost the whole time I have lived in Paris. It’s at the back of my mind every time I go out,” Nicholson told the Guardian.

As Laguerre’s satisfaction in having proof of harassment suggests, being believed is not always a given.

“The number of men who say ‘oh you’re imagining it’ or are overstating it ...” said Nicholson. “For years I’ve told people about this happening, asked what it’s all about and what I could do. Often the response is: stop moaning; change your attitude; change your clothes; your hair; your neighbourhood.



“One guy suggested I have a pushchair as they respect mothers. For goodness sake; I don’t have a child, why would I push around an empty pushchair?”



She added: “France is still very much a man-led and patriarchal society and because harassers don’t harass in front of other men, men don’t see it happen and don’t always believe how bad it can be.



“For women, it’s part of the wallpaper. There’s this idea that you’re just being hit on, but it’s harassment. One minute they’re calling you a princess and the next you’re a pute [whore]. What right do they have to come into my day and call me a whore?”

After one assault, Nicholson was so shaken she asked a passerby to walk her to the metro station. “I told him I was scared … By the time we got there he’d asked me out.”



Sexual harassment of women in France is not confined to Paris, but is a particular problem in the capital.

A survey of the world’s most dangerous megacities for women by Thomson Reuters last year ranked Paris 17 out of 19 cities. London was 19.



But in April this year, police statistics for the first quarter of 2018 obtained by Le Figaro newspaper showed cases of rape and sexual harassment had risen by 29% in Paris. In those three months, there were around 608 incidents reported compared with 471 for the same period in 2017. In France as a whole, the increase was 15%.



This week, the French government passed into law an on-the-spot fine of €90 for anyone caught sexually harassing a woman on the street or on public transport, which comes into effect in September.

But government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux has admitted that catching and identifying offenders is a challenge. Laguerre’s attacker has still not been found, despite the video of the attack being widely publicised.

Rebecca Amsellem, creator of the feminist newsletter Les Glorieuses and author of a new book, Les Glorieuses: Chronicles of a Feminist, is sceptical.



“I’ve been putting up with this in the street since I was 13,” she said. “It’s not about harassment, it’s about women being treated as objects in society and the new law won’t change anything. The police don’t have the money to train officers effectively about what constitutes harassment and often they are part of the problem.



“If you call them and say a guy behaved weirdly towards you, often the first reaction is they laugh. The answer is having more women in charge of the institutions, the police, the fire services, other bodies. Then we might have real changes.”



For French critics of #MeToo – who view the movement against sexual harassment and assault as “American puritanism” and argue women could deal with any problems by standing up for themselves – Laguerre’s video showed this was not always the case. Laguerre refused to let a strange man insult her in the street, and she was violently attacked for it.

The #MeToo campaign, sparked by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s predatory and sexually abusive behaviour with female actors, provoked a backlash in France, where cultural differences, among them French ideas of “seduction”, were cited to counter it.



The breadth of the cultural chasm emerged in an open letter signed by 100 women including French icon Catherine Deneuve, railing at political correctness and a “witch-hunt” that impinged on men’s “freedom to importune”.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest French critics of #MeToo, including actress Catherine Deneuve, view the movement as “American puritanism”. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Lenaig Bredoux, from the investigative website Mediapart, says this attitude makes victims of abuse and harassment reluctant to come forward.

Bredoux and her colleagues have spent several months investigating claims that the French director Luc Besson preyed on female actors, an accusation he denies and one that is currently the subject of a police investigation. They traced other women making similar claims against Besson: four, including a 49-year-old casting director, were prepared to give Mediapart signed statements, but anonymously; several others were too afraid.

“Not one single French actress has wanted to come forward,” Bredoux said.



“They cite being afraid for their families and their careers, but when you have people coming out and saying ‘oh that’s just how the cinema industry is’ or that it’s ‘American puritanism’, it makes these women feel isolated,” she said. “And when you have a cinema icon like Catherine Deneuve writing what she wrote, this weighs heavily against them coming forward.”



Nicholson added: “It’s a question of respect. At some level they just don’t see us as human in the way they are human. If I respond it’s gratifying to them, they have won. It’s a power game.



“This atmosphere where nobody does anything adds to the confusion for women. When this was happening to me, I was asking myself if I was over-reacting and should let it go? Should I accept that these men think I exist only to sexually gratify them, which is wrong?”



Laguerre, Nicholson, Amsellem, Bredoux and women everywhere may hope the video is, beyond doubt, proof of what they’ve been enduring and shouting about for years without anyone listening.



“Men behave like they own the streets and public spaces and can do what they like in them. What we need is a revolution,” said Amsellem.



Street harassment laws around the world

Belgium banned sexist insults on the streets in 2014, following an outcry over a documentary showing the abuse women faced. However it was only in 2016 that this law was first used to prosecute someone, after a man insulted a police officer because of her gender. A court in Brussels fined him €3,000.

Egypt categorised sexual harassment as a crime punishable by a minimum six-month jail term and a fine worth 3,000 Egyptian pounds (£128) in 2014 – with increased penalties for employers and repeat offenders. However, many women’s and human rights groups say the law did not go far enough – they call for a broader law that methodically outlines all forms of sexual crime and streamlines the judicial process. A UN study last year revealed that 43% of Egyptian men believe that women like to be sexually harassed.

Nottinghamshire police decided to classify misogyny as a hate crime in 2016. However, this did not mean that verbal sexual harassment is now considered a sexual offence, but simply enables the police force to monitor and log such incidents.

Peru passed a bill defining street harassment as any act impacting upon the freedom and dignity of movement or another person’s right to physical and moral integrity. Offences in public spaces carry a maximum sentence of up to 12 years.

Portugal’s Social Democratic party made verbal sexual abuse a crime in 2015, with offences resulting in a fine of up to €120 or imprisonment for a year.

In Buenos Aires, the city council passed a bill making sexual harassment a crime in 2016. Harassment under the bill is defined as catcalling, non-consensual physical contact, indecent exposure, public masturbation and pursuing and cornering, and is punishable by a fine of up to 1,000 pesos (£28).

In Manila, the local government revised its gender and development code to include penalties for sexual harassment of women in public spaces in 2016. Verbal abuse, stalking and making offensive gestures can result in a fine of up to PHP 5,000 (£14). Physical sexual harassment is punishable with the same fine or up to a year in prison. Emma Snaith



