January 13, 2026
By Maële Dumontet
On 4 September 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) adopted a decision in the case E.A et Association européenne contre les violences faites aux femmes au travail v. France concerning the authorities’ failure to criminalise non-consensual sexual intercourse and conduct an effective investigation into the applicant’s allegations of rape. This recent judgment contributes to the discourse on women’s rights as the Court relies on its case law and the reports of the monitoring body GREVIO (Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence), created by the Istanbul Convention on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, to conclude on a violation of articles 3 and 8 ECHR. It thus explores the symbiotic connection between the ECtHR and GREVIO in interpreting the ECHR articles in light of the State’s implementation of Istanbul Convention standards. The case has taken on increased significance in light of the latest report published by GREVIO on France’s implementation of the Istanbul Convention and the recent Loi n°2025-1057 modifiant la definition pénale du viol et des agressions sexuelles (modifying the criminal definition of rape and sexual assault), hereafter the “Loi n°2025-1057”, basing the criminal offence of rape on a lack of consent. The core of the blog engages with the three key legal arguments discussed by the ECtHR in E.A v France, thereby looking into the inadequate criminal offence of rape in France, the harmful practice of reclassification and the judicial stereotyping in sexual violence cases. The post thus concludes on the positive impact of the Court and the GREVIO’s cooperation, combining monitoring and authoritative judgments to advance States’ action in eliminating violence against women.
In 2013, the applicant was a temporary assistant pharmacist in a hospital and reported acts of sexual violence and harassment committed by the department head whom she had entered a relationship with a few months prior. Corroborating these allegations, she provided extracts of their correspondence and a so-called “contrat maître-chienne” (“contract between the master and his bitch”) co-signed by herself and the abuser. She described being under coercive control, suffering from constant humiliation at work and degrading treatment at the hands of the abuser who used his superior position in both professional and private contexts. The applicant reported a sadomasochistic relationship and non-consensual sexual acts, including anal penetration.
After a medical consultation, the applicant was placed on indefinite medical leave and eventually hospitalised in psychiatry. An internal investigation was consequently opened into the allegations of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment and abusing a position of authority. The conclusions of the investigation were transmitted to the public prosecutor, together with testimonies from the applicant’s colleagues and relatives, as well as a psychiatric expertise highlighting her PTSD and “hostage-syndrome” symptoms.
A judicial investigation was opened, but the public prosecutor only charged the abuser with sexual harassment, battery and abusing a position of authority. In first instance, the abuser was declared guilty of these charges, but the Court of Appeal ultimately reversed the judgment, considering the evidence as insufficient to determine the causal link between the violence suffered and the abuser’s actions. Importantly, her request to reclassify the charges of battery into rape and sexual assault was rejected, with the Court, failing to assess whether the acts occurred without her consent. The applicant appealed to the Cour de Cassation, but her claim was dismissed.
The applicant argued a violation of the State’s procedural duty under Articles 3 and 8 ECHR given the narrow definition of the criminal offence of rape in French law, preventing the effective prosecution of the non-consensual acts she reported. The subsequent ineffective investigation and prosecution which exposed the applicant to secondary victimisation were further held to constitute a violation under Articles 3 and 8 ECHR (para 1). Drawing on the Istanbul Convention and GREVIO’s reports on France’s implementation, the Court first examined whether the legal framework in place allowed for a robust prosecution of sexual violence including situations where the consent was not given freely (para 149). It then assessed the authorities’ investigation and found it ineffective, identifying deficiencies in the criminal proceedings arising from the judges’ reclassification of the act and their evaluation of the applicant’s consent (para 162). The Court therefore held that articles 3 and 8 ECHR had been violated due both to the absence of a consent-based definition of rape in domestic law and the authorities’ failure to take account of the applicant’s situation of coercive control, which led to secondary victimisation.
Relying on its previous judgments J.L v Italy, M.C v Bulgaria and Vuckovic v Croatia, the ECtHR firstly interpreted articles 3 and 8 ECHR in light of the obligations enshrined in the Istanbul Convention (para. 132). It established that the State’s duty to ensure an adequate legal framework to protect women and prosecute perpetrators of violence encompasses the necessity to adopt a consent-based criminal offence of rape. Interestingly, the Court’s focus on the procedural limbs of articles 3 and 8 ECHR mirrors GREVIO’s monitoring method as the analysis centred on the legal framework and implemented policies rather than on the substantive aspect of gender-based violence and the individual scenarios of violence. In fact, in E.A v France, article 14 ECHR was never mentioned although the secondary victimisation arising from the judges’ conduct might have amounted to gender-based discrimination and degrading treatment for the purposes of article 3 ECHR.
In asserting a violation of the ECHR, the Court further referred to article 36 of the Istanbul Convention according to which the State must criminalise sexual assault and rape (para 85). The Explanatory Report to the Istanbul Convention was also included in the Court’s argument that the core of such legislation must be the victim’s behaviour and consent, anchoring its interpretation in the “yes means yes” approach suggested in article 36 (para 87). According to this concept, it must be ensured that all parties enthusiastically consent to sexual acts, either by verbally saying “yes” or actively expressing consent through non-verbal means. Citing the legal uncertainty created by a criminal offence of rape based on force as well as its failure to cover all situations of rape, the Court concluded its analysis with reference to GREVIO’s report on France’s implementation of the Istanbul Convention published in 2019 (para 88). The ECtHR finally emphasised the limited margin of appreciation afforded to the Contracting States in sexual violence cases, in view of the private aspect of such an element, to conclude that the French legal framework was insufficient (para. 134).
The mutual influence and co-operation between GREVIO and the Court can also be observed through GREVIO’s supervision of the French authorities’ implementation of articles 36 and 48 of the Istanbul Convention. Indeed, GREVIO took note of the ECtHR’s interpretation in gender-based violence cases to encourage the French parliamentary debates in relation to the bill introducing a new criminal offence of rape. Seeing as both the ECtHR and GREVIO aim to contribute to legal and institutional reforms in the Contracting States, this objective may have been reached with the Loi n°2025-1057 adopted on the 6th of November 2025. The law shifted the basis of the offence from the presence of force to the absence of freely given consent, which cannot be inferred from silence or lack of resistance, and grants the victim the right to withdraw consent at any point before or during the act.
The second major deficiency identified by the Court and GREVIO in France was the ineffective application of the existing criminal offences to gender-based violence cases. In E.A v France, the Court thus recalled the authorities’ procedural obligations under articles 3 and 8 ECHR to construe their investigative duty during the inquiry and prosecution phases of gender-based violence cases (para 139). Indeed, the applicant argued the authorities failed to properly apply the existing criminal offences to her case, most notably by rejecting her request to reclassify the facts (paras 114-116). Although she reported acts of non-consensual sex and filled a complaint for rape and sexual violence, the public prosecutor and the judges reclassified the charges from crimes to “délits”, ultimately charging the perpetrator with battery instead of rape and sexual assault (para 71). By allowing the crime of rape to be reclassified and tried by the tribunal correctionnel, the authorities selected a process reducing the statute of limitation, the sentence and the amount of damages awardable to the victim (para 153).
Grounding its conclusion on this element of “correctionnalisation”, the Court further relied on GREVIO’s assessment, which considers this practice harmful, as it minimises the seriousness of the crime of rape and condones the “culture of rape”. In its 2025 report, GREVIO interestingly criticised the persistence of this practice, notably reporting that up to 80% of rape cases in France were reclassified in 2024. On this point however, GREVIO went further than the Court by also examining conviction rates and case dismissals in its analysis of the criminal response to gender-based violence. This broader approach is not surprising given GREVIO’s mandate to monitor the implementation of each provision of the Istanbul Convention, and provide precise guidance to States. On the other hand, since GREVIO lacks an individual complaint mechanism, its cooperation with the Court, whose mission is to sanction acts of gender-based violence, can only be strengthened.
A further dimension concerns the authorities’ failure to consider the surrounding circumstances as presented by the applicant when assessing whether she freely consented to the sexual acts and to the sadomasochistic relationship (para. 157, 161). The Court first mapped the relevant criteria to consider in determining whether a victim consented to sexual intercourse, elements also incorporated by GREVIO in its report on France’s implementation. The victim’s age, psychological vulnerability, lack of experience in relationships, possible intoxication and the existence of a coercive control situation were classified as important surrounding circumstances to appreciate consent by both mechanisms (para. 143). In this case, the authorities failed to take account of the applicant’s psychological vulnerability, the relationship’s impact on her well-being and failed to question whether coercive control could negate her consent (paras 165-167). The ECtHR thus motivated its judgment by relying on GREVIO’s interpretation of article 33 Istanbul Convention related to psychological violence, which encompasses humiliation and constraint and requires the criminalisation of coercive control behaviours (para 89).
Assessing the Court of Appeal’s decision, the ECtHR therefore held that relying on past agreement “contrat maître-chienne” to infer consent to any future sexual intercourse amounted to victim blaming (paras 168-170). Rather than simply restating the criteria to appreciate the applicant’s consent, the Court went further and for the first time based the secondary victimisation on a mere imputation of consent. This development was subsequently enshrined in the new Loi n°2025-1057 modifying article 222-22 Code pénal to require consent to be informed, freely given and assessed in light of the surrounding circumstances.
Beyond these investigative and prosecutorial shortcomings, the Court also highlighted the crucial role of professionals’ training (or lack thereto) in the case (paras 157, 170). Analysing article 15 Istanbul Convention, GREVIO thus deemed the training of relevant professionals in France unsatisfactory. Significantly, the lack of training in psycho-traumatology for psychologists handling sexual violence cases; the limited police training on gender-based violence and harmful stereotypes as well as a shortage of courses on violence against women available to members of the judiciary were identified. E.A v France clearly illustrated these flaws; however, the Court did not extend its scrutiny to this structural issue, leaving it to GREVIO, certainly better equipped to observe any progress or receding on the matter.
In E.A v France, the ECtHR further strengthened its co-operation with, and reliance on, GREVIO’s guiding work under the Istanbul Convention. It held the domestic authorities are obliged to adopt an adequate legal framework to eliminate violence against women, protect their sexual autonomy, and assess consent in light of surrounding circumstances. Critically, the Court expanded its existing case law on the element of coercive control, highlighted by GREVIO as a crucial component capable of negating consent. When analysing the domestic authorities’ response to sexual violence cases, both institutions thus reviewed the existence of a consent-based offence of rape as well as its correct application by the investigative authorities, ultimately reflecting on their understanding of gender-based violence.
This case serves to illustrate how a coherent interpretation of human rights standards by mutually reinforcing bodies – a judicial mechanism and a specialised monitoring institution – can positively impact domestic implementation and cultural shift. In this respect, the newly adopted French Loi n°2025-1057 on the criminal offence of rape demonstrates how sustained institutional cooperation, including repeated findings of violation by the ECtHR and GREVIO’s observations on the need to reform rape legislation, may in fact advance the fight against violence against women in Europe.
Strasbourg Observers is an academic blog that discusses recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights. The editorial team of Strasbourg Observers is based at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Centre for Government and Law of Hasselt University.
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