Presumption of innocence

Presumption of innocence is both a procedural protection and a point of conflict in the case against Alexandre Farel. The novel distinguishes the legal status of a man who has not yet been convicted from the social consequences of an accusation: Alexandre is initially released under judicial supervision, but public attention, restrictions, and the long investigation profoundly alter his life before the jury reaches a verdict.

Legal protection and its limits

When Alexandre appears before the investigating judge, he denies having raped anyone and says that he is exhausted and afraid of prison. His lawyer, Maître Célérier, stresses that the investigation has not established certainty and points to Alexandre’s clean record and educational achievements. The judge nevertheless formally charges him with rape, while deciding not to detain him. Alexandre is released under judicial supervision, rather than cleared of the accusation or restored to ordinary freedom.

The conditions of that supervision make the distinction concrete. Alexandre cannot approach Mila Wizman or leave France; he gives up his planned studies at Stanford University and the prospect of a career in the United States. Over the two-year investigation, judicial and police requests, expert assessments, interviews, and a further confrontation repeatedly interrupt his life. The intervals between these demands can make the case feel unreal, but each new contact brings the possibility of imprisonment back into view. The principle protects him from pretrial detention at first; it does not spare him the prolonged constraints of an unresolved case.

Public accusation and private cost

The accusation becomes public within hours of Jean Farel’s request for secrecy. Agence France-Presse reports that Alexandre has been placed in police custody on suspicion of rape. News messages and journalists’ inquiries reach both his parents, while Maître Célérier publicly says that Alexandre contests the allegations and characterizes the encounter as consensual. The novel presents these statements as competing claims, not as a judicial finding.

The wider climate intensifies the conflict. In the wake of the Weinstein revelations and the wave of women speaking publicly about sexual assault and harassment, the Farel case becomes heavily mediatized. At trial, crowds gather outside the Palais de Justice, and demonstrators denounce impunity and demand an end to silence. Meanwhile, Claire Farel receives insults online, and her previous interview about the Cologne assaults becomes entangled with her son’s case. The atmosphere gives the accusation a public force well before the jury has decided it.

Alexandre tells the court that he could not continue his studies in Paris because he was harassed and threatened; he says he closed his social-media accounts after receiving messages, including calls for his death. His account describes losses caused by the public stigma attached to the accusation, while the proceedings continue to consider the complaint and the evidence. The novel thus separates the harm of public condemnation from the question the court must answer, without treating either as unreal.

Evidence and competing accounts

The trial places the principle under pressure by setting procedural uncertainty beside testimony and evidence. A police officer says that nothing had led the investigators to doubt Mila’s sincerity. Maître Célérier questions the strength of the complaint and focuses, among other points, on contradictions about whether a knife was present. The doctor who examined Mila confirms her state of panic and vaginal injuries that could be consistent with forced intercourse. These details are presented as elements considered in court, not as a complete resolution of the disputed events.

The prosecutor acknowledges that sexual intercourse between Alexandre and Mila on the night of January 11–12, 2016, is not disputed, while arguing that the central difficulty lies in understanding the accused’s character and the passage to the act. The prosecution describes a contrast between Alexandre as a diligent, vulnerable student and as someone capable of being contemptuous, violent, possessive, and jealous. The defense, in turn, argues that the case retains uncertainties and that the jury must decide from the evidence rather than from political or emotional pressure. Their disagreement shows that presumption of innocence does not itself determine what happened; it frames how unresolved claims should be judged.

A principle contested in public and at trial

Maître Célérier presents media judgment as an injury to the presumption of innocence. He argues that the case has already destroyed Alexandre’s prospects: he has left engineering school, abandoned the plan to study at Stanford, and become identified online with the word “rapist.” His appeal distinguishes a jury’s task from the condemnations circulating on social media. The novel gives this argument force through the concrete consequences Alexandre describes, while also setting it against the public presence of Mila’s supporters and the prosecutor’s account of her fear and difficulty in speaking.

The defense’s closing argument insists that the file contains two subjective accounts and that a judicial truth must still be reached. It urges the jurors to focus on Alexandre’s acts rather than to treat the trial as a referendum on the women’s movement. The prosecutor, by contrast, asks them to recognize Mila’s experience and the social obstacles surrounding a report of rape, while also addressing Alexandre’s possible reintegration. The competing arguments make clear that invoking the presumption of innocence cannot resolve the evidentiary dispute, just as taking a complainant seriously does not by itself establish guilt.

Consequences and significance

The principle is therefore shown as necessary but vulnerable: it governs the distinction between accusation and conviction, yet it cannot prevent social penalties from arriving first. The novel traces that imbalance through Alexandre’s restricted movement, abandoned studies, loss of online presence, and eventual imprisonment after he approaches Mila in Paris and his judicial supervision is revoked. That later detention follows a separate incident during the investigation, not a verdict on the original accusation.

After the verdict, Jean Farel shows no visible emotion, having taken an anxiolytic shortly before entering the courtroom. He speaks briefly with Alexandre and tells reporters he will make no comment. Outside, a demonstrator argues that the outcome protects a white man with a promising future. The scene leaves the social dispute alive after the court has spoken: the legal process reaches a decision, but public disagreement about fairness, privilege, and the meaning of justice continues.