Warning : this page refers in a general way to a legal case involving sex with children. Though the facts are ugly, I believed it important to document some reactions to the case, as insight into the world-view of some influential thinkers in 1970s France.
As a preface, consider the “irresponsibility … of the liberal community” that James Baldwin complained of during the McCarthy hearings. Now …
The Versailles Affair was a French legal case from 1977 in which three men aged 39 to 45, were prosecuted for having sex with male and female children aged 13 and 14. Many important intellectuals, including the founders of post-modernism, publicly supported the immediate release of these men for time served, and repeal or revision of the law that allowed prosecution of adults for sex with consenting children.
I am trying to be as fair as possible to the original sources, by quoting them at length, with minimal elision, and in context. I’m happy to hear any suggestions of ways I could do better at that.
This is a translation 1 from the French Wikipedia page on the Versailles Affair:
The case
Bernard Dejager, Jean-Claude Gallien and Jean Burckhardt were arrested on October 20, 1973 for having had sexual intercourse with girls and boys aged 13 and 14. The circumstances were sufficiently unclear that the investigation lasted more than three years and two months. The acts allegedly took place at the Camping Club de France de Meudon, the oldest specialized camping club in France, located in the Forest of Meudon, which has various groups, including a naturist group.
The three men appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles for “indecent assault without violence on minors aged 15”, which, at the time, qualified as a crime. Over the course of investigation it seemed that they were at risk of five to ten years in prison.
Matzneff’s op-ed, then the petition of support for the accused.
On November 8, 1976, in the newspaper Le Monde, the writer Gabriel Matzneff published an op-ed in support of the accused, titled “Is love a crime?, in which he complains bitterly about the lack of support he received after his appearance on”Apostrophes”, Bernard Pivot’s new TV show, on September 12, 1975, for which had been severely criticized. He had received a complaint from a viewer who believed that this justification for pedophilia had harmed his family.
Two and a half months later, the three defendants elicited a petition of support that emphasized the fact that they had been in preventive detention for three years and two months. The petition is signed by various public figures: the text affirms that the children suffered “no violence”, and that they were “consenting”, adding furthermore: “if a girl of thirteen is entitled to the pill, what is that for?”. The petition asserts that the tenacity with which the three accused were being prosecuted was disproportionate: “Three years in prison for caresses and kisses, that is enough”. The petitioners, who include well-known intellectuals, consider there is a clear disproportion between the classification of “crime” that justifies such severity, and the nature of the alleged offenses.
Several famous intellectuals were signatories, such as Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Félix Guattari.
Later, some of the same people signed a petition to the French parliament that cites the case as an example of legal excess. The petition calls for the law to be repealed or changed to make it legal for children to have sex with adults or other children. Here I have quoted the beginning and end of the petition:
Open letter to the Commission for the Revision of the Penal Code supporting the revision of some legislative instruments governing the relations between adults and minors
Relationships between children, adolescents and adults are subject to significant restrictions by law: by the notion of “corruption of minors” (which can consist of a simple single overnight stay of a minor); by the general ban on having sexual relations with children under the age of 15; or by the special ban that targets homosexual relations with minors aged 15 to 18, defined as “immodest or against nature”.
The obsolescence of the notions underlying these crimes or misdemeanors (“modesty”, “nature”), the evolution of mores in a youth who feel the excesses of fastidious segregation as oppressive, mean that these legal articles are no more than the instrument of coercion, in place of a guaranteed right.
A recent case has just clearly shown the disproportion between the criminal apparatus and the nature of the acts it punishes. After more than three years of preventive detention, three people accused of “indecent assault committed or attempted without violence on the person of children of either sex aged under 15”, acts that the law (article 331 §1 of the Penal Code) qualifies as “crimes”, were sentenced by the Court of Assizes of Yvelines to 5 years in prison, suspended.
…
The signatories of this letter … believe, more generally, that the provisions claiming to “protect” children and young people, such as article 334-1 concerning “the incitement of minors to debauchery”, which make it possible to charge anyone who “promotes” or “facilitates” sexual relations between minors, or article 356 concerning the “abuse of minors”, are, like article 331, increasingly incompatible with the evolution of our society, justifying harassment and straightforward police control, and must be repealed, or profoundly modified, in order to recognize the right of children and adolescents to maintain relations with persons of their choice.
The 80 signatories included Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Félix Guattari and Jean-François Lyotard.
All translation here is a combination of Google Translate, DeepL, and my own edits for idiomatic English. I’ve given the French source; if you find somewhere the translation is misleading or incorrect, let me know.↩︎