« France’s Senate opened a new debate Monday on the best approach to legislating on prostitution, posing the question of who should bear the brunt of the law – prostitutes or their clients.
French senators will on Monday debate whether the law should punish prostitutes or their clients, as France resumes a divisive discussion on how to crackdown on the world’s oldest profession.
The proposed law completely revises a bill passed by France’s lower house in 2013 that never took effect.
That bill would have repealed a 2003 law that made offering sex for sale a crime and would have instead pushed the onus on to clients, making them subject to a fine.
The draft legislation passed by the lower house, the National Assembly, two years ago made clients of prostitutes liable for a fine of 1,500 euros ($1,620) for a first offence and more than double that for subsequent breaches.
But under the revamped bill currently before the Senate, prostitutes would continue to face fines of up to 3,750 euros and two months in prison for selling sex, while an earlier provision to fine clients would be dropped.
Both versions of the legislation have drawn fierce opposition from sex workers who say it would simply push prostitution further underground and make the women who earn their living from it more vulnerable to abuse.
Hundreds of prostitutes – many of whom were wearing masks – took to the streets of Paris on Saturday to protest the proposed laws.
« Prostitution is legal in France, » said Franceline Lepany, who advocates for sex workers’ rights. « This bill seeks to even further stigmatise prostitutes. »
Paying or accepting payment for sex is not currently, in itself, a crime in France. But soliciting, pimping (which includes running brothels) and the sale of sex by minors are prohibited.
« We must go after the mafia, not these women, » said Senator Esther Benbassa at Saturday’s protest. « We have taken a step backwards. And all this to give society a veneer of morality. »
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