Repression of sexual harassment has first appeared in case-law, after complaints were brought in front of American courts. Later, continental Europe, and especially the European Community's Intstitutions, have enticed to adopt the first legislations specific to sexual harassment. This is how France was led to introduce the notion of sexual harassment in its criminal law and labour law. According to the law, the notion of sexual harassment covers various types of behaviours, physical or merely oral, sometimes close to other criminal qualifications. References made to it in the French Criminal Code and Labour Code have been amended in order to give sexual harassment a wider meaning, not limited to hierarchical relationships. Furthermore, case-law has shown that sexual harassment did not concern women only or heterosexuals only. The offence of sexual harassment appeared in France with the Criminal law reform of 1993 and was introduced within a section dedicated to sexually-related offences. Case-law, building up progressively, shows that the most problematic issue consists in gathering evidence. Therefore, in order to prove the materiality of the offence, judges tend to proceed by way of presumptions. Before any criminal provisions were implemented, French labour law already protected employees against behaviours comparable to sexual harasment, in addition to texts that foresaw discrimination as to sex. What was sought was to protect victims from unjustified dismissals. The circumstances in which acts of sexual harassment are generally perpetuated prevent them from being disclosed to the public at large. This explains why exemplary sentences remain scarce. However the psychological and pedagogical virtues of these new criminal and social legislations are blatant. (C) 2006 Elsevier SAS. Tous droits reserves.
