11 janvier 2016

11 janvier 2016 marks the night at the center of the Farel case: Alexandre Farel and Mila Wizman had a sexual encounter, and Mila later reported that it was rape. At trial, the occurrence of sex was not disputed; the central question was consent. The date consequently became both a point of reference in the legal proceedings and the beginning of the radically different accounts that Alexandre and Mila gave of what had happened.

The night and its setting

At the trial, Mila’s lawyer situated the encounter in a large Paris apartment where young people were gathered, including people Mila did not know and whose social milieu differed from hers. The lawyer described Mila as feeling vulnerable and reassured by Alexandre’s company. After they went outside, Alexandre suggested that they move to a secluded place to smoke cannabis. The account presented by the civil party stressed how a situation that Mila believed offered security came to be understood by her as an assault.

Competing accounts

The prosecution’s account characterized the encounter as a rape and argued that Mila’s fear and shock had prevented her from resisting in the ways others might expect. The advocate general distinguished between the undisputed fact that sexual relations took place and the disputed question of consent, describing Alexandre as capable of both vulnerability and attention toward others and of possessive or violent behavior. He called the alleged crime opportunistic, while acknowledging that the reason Alexandre crossed that line remained a mystery.

The defense offered a sharply different interpretation. It argued that the pair had flirted, that Mila had followed Alexandre voluntarily, and that he believed they would have sex. It pointed to the absence of a clear verbal refusal or physical resistance, as well as the medical examination’s finding of no particular injuries, to support its claim that the encounter was consensual. Alexandre consistently denied rape and maintained that Mila had consented. These arguments formed the trial’s central conflict; they do not erase the distinction between the established occurrence of sex and the contested question of consent.

Consequences and public meaning

The encounter’s significance extended beyond the disputed events of that night. Mila Wizman filed a complaint, and the allegation against Alexandre Farel became public while he was in police custody. The Agence France-Presse headline identifying Jean Farel’s son as suspected of rape turned a private allegation into a widely circulated public story. His lawyer denied the charges and described the encounter as consensual; Jean, who had asked that the matter remain secret, saw the accusation also stain his own public reputation.

The case unfolded amid the wave of public testimony following the Weinstein revelations. By the time Alexandre’s trial opened, journalists, spectators and protesters had gathered outside the Palais de Justice, where demonstrators carried messages opposing impunity and silence. The case was thus heard in a climate that encouraged women to speak about sexual violence, while the defense warned that public opinion had already condemned its client. The date at the center of the charge became inseparable from these competing pressures: Mila’s effort to have her account heard and the defense’s insistence that the court judge the accused rather than the media’s verdict.

Mila’s lawyer described the years after the night as a period in which she had to recount what happened repeatedly, through police questioning, expert examinations and the trial itself. The advocate general likewise emphasized her fear of not being believed and the difficulty of speaking before strangers. In the courtroom, the date therefore stood not simply for a disputed encounter but for the beginning of a long process in which Mila’s account was repeatedly examined and challenged.

The proceedings also reshaped Alexandre’s life. After the initial investigation, he was placed under judicial supervision, barred from approaching Mila and from leaving France, and forced to abandon plans to study at Stanford. A later encounter with Mila in Paris led to his arrest for breaching those conditions and his imprisonment at Fresnes. At trial, the defense argued that publicity had destroyed his prospects and damaged the presumption of innocence; the prosecution, while acknowledging the consequences for him, argued that Mila’s suffering and the question of consent remained central. The date’s lasting narrative force lies in this unresolved contrast between a single night and the years of legal, personal and public consequences attached to it.

The date as a point of conflict

In court, the night of 11 January 2016 was reconstructed through accounts that assigned opposite meanings to the same sequence. The prosecution stressed that Mila Wizman had been drinking and using cannabis, and argued that her shock and fear explained why she did not resist in the manner the defense expected. The defense instead presented the evening as one of mutual flirtation and maintained that Alexandre Farel understood Mila’s actions as agreement. The clash was not over whether they had sex, but over what could be inferred about consent from the circumstances and from their differing accounts.

The date as a point of conflict

In court, the night of 11 January 2016 was reconstructed through accounts that assigned opposite meanings to the same circumstances. The prosecution stressed that Mila Wizman had been drinking and using cannabis, and argued that fear and shock could explain why she did not resist in the manner the defense expected. The defense instead presented the evening as mutual flirtation and maintained that Alexandre Farel understood her actions as agreement. The dispute was not over whether they had sex, but over what could be inferred about consent from the circumstances and their conflicting accounts.