Violence in culture: what the law changes

When filming becomes a place of pressure, who really protects the weakest?

In cinema, audiovisual, fashion or advertising, the question is not only artistic. It is very concrete: who can speak without losing a role, a contract or their reputation? It is this logic of silence that two deputies want to tackle, by tabling a bill on moral, sexist and sexual violence in culture, at the very moment when the Cannes Film Festival opens.

The text arrives a year after the report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into this violence, made public on April 9, 2025. This commission, created after the testimony of Judith Godrèche, spent months hearing around 350 personalities from the sector and formulated 86 recommendations. Above all, she made a simple diagnosis: in many cultural professions, precariousness and relationships of dependence encourage silence.

What the bill contains

The text submitted by Sandrine Rousseau and Erwan Balanant includes 19 articles. Its stated objective is clear: to bring into law practices that charters and good intentions have not been enough to impose. The deputies say they want to “fight against violence in the cultural professions” and hope for adoption before the end of the legislature. No examination date had been set at the time of submission.

The most sensitive aspect concerns minors. The text provides for a systematic check of integrity for any person working with them. It also prohibits a minor from playing a major character in a film, or from participating in a fashion campaign for adult clothing. The idea is to limit the sexualization of children on screen and to reduce situations where the line between play and endangerment becomes blurred.

Another measure: make the presence of an intimacy coordinator mandatory as soon as a minor films an intimate scene, of a sexual nature, with nudity or semi-nudity. For adults, recourse to this professional would simply be suggested. This function already exists in certain filmings, but the text wants to remove it at the discretion of the productions.

The castings would also be more supervised. They should be held in conditions similar to a job interview, during normal working hours and in formal premises. The text prohibits a candidate from being asked to undress or to reenact intimate scenes at this stage. Behind this rule, there is a known reality in the sector: many hearings still take place in informal settings, where the power imbalance is maximum.

Why these rules would change the life of the sector

On paper, these measures first protect the most vulnerable: minors, beginners, intermittent workers, technicians and actors at the bottom of the ladder. In culture, a refusal can cost more than a mission. It can close doors for years. It is precisely this mixture of economic dependence, prestige and interpersonal relationships that has allowed the violence to last. The 2025 parliamentary report spoke of a system where the victims’ words are broken while the careers of the attackers continue.

The bill also aims to provide security to those who report acts of violence or harassment. The deputies propose to prohibit any financial sanction, any withholding of salary and any request for damages against internal whistleblowers. The challenge is simple: to prevent the fear of losing money or work from stifling reports. In an environment where contracts are short and jobs are fragmented, this protection can weigh heavily.

The text goes further on the criminal level. He wants to create a new offense requiring the employer to report to the courts the facts of sexist and sexual violence and harassment brought to his attention, after written consent from the victim. It also extends the “sliding statute of limitations” to all sexual violence, including for adult victims. This sliding prescription already extends, in certain cases, the deadlines when a defendant reoffends against a minor; the extension would therefore aim to better deal with repeated and organized violence.

This must be placed in existing law. The law of August 3, 2018 has already strengthened the protection of minors against sexual violence and extended certain limitation periods. But the cultural sector often demands more concrete guarantees on sets, where the general rules of labor law struggle to cover casting, filming or rehearsal situations. The new text therefore aims to fill a blind spot: the very organization of artistic work.

Support, reservations and what is at stake politically

In terms of support, the movement is already underway in the audiovisual sector. The Ministry of Culture welcomed the signing of two agreements in 2025 between employer organizations and employee unions, with progress on VHSS references, casting security, the informed consent clause, the privacy coordinator and the protection of minors. These agreements show that part of the sector now agrees to better regulate practices.

But a question remains: should the law generalize what began with branch negotiation, or let professionals adapt their tools themselves? Producer organizations have an interest in maintaining a certain flexibility so as not to add to the burden of filming already constrained by deadlines and budgets. Conversely, employee unions have an interest in enshrining safeguards in the law, because an internal charter can disappear faster than a legal obligation. The 2025 report clearly went in this second direction.

This tension also explains why the proposed law is political as well as technical. Sandrine Rousseau and Erwan Balanant want to transform an investigation report into a legislative tool. They know that part of the profession fears any rule perceived as intrusive. But they are betting on a shift in the balance of power: less tolerance for wild casting, less impunity for abusive behavior, more traceability for reports.

What to watch for now

What happens next depends first of all on the parliamentary calendar. No exam date has yet been set, and the text must find its place in an already busy schedule. The real question will be political: will the Assembly groups follow a text which touches on culture, the protection of minors and labor law at the same time? If so, the proposal could become one of the rare direct legislative legacies of the major parliamentary project launched after the Godrèche affair. Otherwise, the 2025 report risks remaining, at least in part, a roadmap without immediate translation into law.