A 68-year-old French woman found guilty of murdering her husband in December and sentenced to ten years in jail has been pardoned by the French President.
A pardon from the President is extremely rare in France, but the case of Jacqueline Sauvage has gripped the nation.
Jacqueline Sauvage met Norbert Marot when she was a teenager more than 50 years ago. His control of her was immediate and for nearly five decades he abused, raped and threatened to murder her regularly.
In the small town of Selle-sur-le-Bied in central France (population around 1000) they raised three daughters and a son. During the trial of Sauvage for murder, her daughters claimed their “violent, tyrannical, perverse and incestuous” father abused and raped them as well. The family say he abused the brother too.
September 10, 2012, the morning after their son killed himself, Marot started on the beatings and the threats again and Sauvage grabbed a hunting rifle, closed her eyes and shot her husband three times in the back, killing him.The court was told that Marot, who ran a failing transport company, was a “sadist and bully” and according to Libe at the re-trial for murder last year 20 inhabitants of the small town testified that “everyone knew that the huge drunkard, feared by everyone in the neighbourhood, used to beat up his wife at least three times every week”.
But while the defence argued that Sauvage acted in self defence due to post-traumatic stress associated with being a victim of long-term domestic violence, The New York Times reports the prosecution argued: “Faced with a punch which resulted in her being on sick leave for three days, she shot three bullets. Three shots in the back is just not admissible.”
The prosecution argued that the response – firing a gun – to Norbert’s act of violence that morning – a few punches – was disproportionate. Under French law self-defence must be seen as proportional to the act that preceded it. They did not take into account the decades of prior abuse.
When Sauvage was found guilty in December over 400,000 people, from both sides of politics, petitioned President Francois Hollande for her pardon. He met with the family on Friday, asked to have time to think and pardoned Sauvage on Sunday.
Everyone today in France is talking about the President’s extremely rare pardon. “I’m overwhelmed, happy, grateful, relieved,” the advocacy group for Sauvage told The Guardian.
Sauvage’s case highlights not just the narrow definitions of self defence in some countries when it comes to victims of domestic abuse and the need to update laws to recognise this, it highlights the silence around domestic abuse that allows it to continue.
The New York Times reports that between 2007-2012, until Norbert’s death, Sauvage attended the emergency unit of the local hospital four times. Sylvie Marot, one of Sauvage’s three daughters, said the children kept their abuse quiet from their mother for fear of their father killing their mother as punishment and their mother kept her abuse quiet from authorities because she was both humiliated and under the control of their father.
Many of the residents of the small town Sauvage lived in knew she was being abused “three times a week”.
All that silence. Everything that was tucked away tightly under that silence.
During the trial Sauvage was thanked by a neighbour who said, “You have done us a service; we can sleep easily.”
Maybe if the silence had been broken decades ago, it would have been Sauvage and her family who could – sometimes – sleep easily.
Top Comments
The requirement that self defence be a proportionate response is not some anti woman quirk of French law as this article implies. It's a feature of pretty much every civilised legal system. In no jurisdiction is it legal to shoot someone in the back because they have assaulted you before and you fear they are going to again (perhaps it should be but it's unlikely to be a recipe for society harmony). But some people just need killing as in this case and rather than change the law so women can murder their husbands as long as they claim assault, much better to have a pardon so that the specific facts of the case can be bought to bear.
Of course it is only ever women driven to murder after abuse. Men who kill are just simply arseholes.
Well men who murder are welcome to detail the abuse they have suffered..........although now that I think of it I have never read or heard of a male doing that, that has been on trial for his partners murder. Have heard of men saying they were abused as kids while on trial often but never of being a battered husband. Have you?
Most men who murder their wives are the abusive ones, it's really as simple as that and only people like you don't get that because you don't want to.
Oh good grief. There's always one.