Paying for sexual act has become an offence in France

The French bill against the prostituting system has been definitely adopted on 6 April 2016.

The French media put the emphasis on the penalization of the customers-prostituters: indeed, buying a sexual act is from now on punished with a fine of 1 500 €. Among other new legal rules: the hooking offence is repealed, measures of protection of persons in situation of prostitution are strengthened and a fund to support them is created, with an amount of 20 millions € a year.

After Sweden in 1997, Norway and Iceland in 2009, Canada and Northern Ireland in 2014, France joined the countries whose law is providing for the penalization of the customers but not the prostitutes’.