Discrimination may take the form of unwanted conduct or behaviour – harassment.

Harassment can be seen as a particular manifestation of direct discrimination. It is defined as unwanted conduct or behaviour that violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. According to French law, harassment occurs when repeated comments or behaviours, made with the purpose or effect of degrading the person’s living or working conditions, result in an impairment of their physical or mental health.

Sexual harassment is unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct or behaviour of a sexual nature. More precisely, it is the repeated use of sexual or sexist language or behaviour that either violates the person’s dignity by being degrading or humiliating, or that creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive situation for that person. Sexual harassment is considered to be a discrimination on grounds of sex.

Whether a particular type of conduct is harassment is not determined by the intention of the perpetrator, but by the effect it has on the victim.

Conduct that could constitute harassment may take many different forms, such as unwanted physical conduct, offensive, insulting jokes, personal insults, unwelcome remarks about a person's appearance, ethnic background or family status, isolation by other colleagues, the display of offensive, sexually explicit material or bullying.

example Telling insulting jokes about people of a certain ethnic origin at the workplace may constitute harassment. Sending explicit text messages about sexual preferences to a colleague may constitute sexual harassment.

Negative comments about the quality of someone’s work, without reference to one’s personal characteristics, do not constitute harassment.

example Work-related emails with negative remarks about someone’s working habits, if written in a neutral way and referring to actual performance, do not violate the prohibition of harassment.

How to react if you are a victim of harassment?

If you are in an emergency situation which requires an urgent intervention by the police, you can alert the police or “gendarmerie” by phone (17 or 112) or by text message (to the phone number 114).

You can also report online to the police or gendarmerie of online/cyber-harassment or sexual harassment.

Finally, you can file a complaint against the perpetrator at the police station. The police cannot refuse to receive your complaint. Your complaint is then forwarded to the public prosecutor who will decide on the actions to take.

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Last updated 25/10/2023