« The article of the penal code on the image or representation of a pornographic nature of a minor maintains a dangerous confusion » – Liberation

“The representation of a minor with a pornographic character is prohibited. It is the law and it imposes itself on everyone ”, Recalls Me Céline Astolfe, Council of the Foundation for Childhood, civil party in the trial of Bastien Vivès and his Glénat publishers and the hammer sharks, which opens this Tuesday at the Judicial Court of Nanterre. The two -bands of the 41 -year -old author’s comics are implicated: Small Paul And The mental discharge. But what exactly does this law say and how has it evolved? Thomas Perroud, professor of public law at Panthéon Assas University, returns to the modification of two articles of the Criminal Code in 1998.

What does the article of the penal code say on which the accusation is based in the Vivès trial?

The author is continued on the basis of article 227.23 of the penal code which prohibits « To fix, record or transmit the image or the representation of a minor when it presents a pornographic character ». Whether it is a real minor or a virtual minor, the penalties are the same: a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. That is to say that the penal code today puts on the same plane a drawing from the imagination of an artist and a pornographic photo which would really imply a minor.

You say that the penal code makes this equivalence « today ». Wasn’t that always been the case?

No, the penal code prohibited for a long time