Mila Wizman—Alexandre Farel

Mila Wizman and Alexandre Farel are linked by a sexual-assault allegation that becomes both a criminal case and a public struggle over whose account of consent will be believed. Mila says Alexandre forced her; he denies the allegation and describes the encounter as consensual. As their competing versions pass through police questioning, a trial, and extensive media coverage, the relationship is defined not by intimacy but by an enduring conflict over truth, harm, and responsibility.

The Encounter and the Disputed Account

At trial, Mila confirms that she had said Alexandre forced her. Asked whether he had held her head and pulled hard, she answers yes and says that it hurt. Her account places physical force at the center of the dispute; it is not a story she presents as mutual intimacy that later went wrong.

Alexandre gives the encounter a different meaning. He says Mila had allowed what happened and that he thought she was enjoying it. When the questioning raises the possibility that she had been immobilized by shock, he rejects that interpretation. The contrast between his claim about what he thought and Mila’s testimony about what he did becomes a central fault line in the case: apparent passivity is treated by Alexandre as evidence of willingness, while the prosecution’s account interprets it as fear and traumatic shock.

The prosecution’s closing argument reconstructs how the encounter began. On the evening of January 11, 2016, Mila was alone in a large Paris apartment among people she did not know and from a more privileged social world than her own. The account describes her as vulnerable and reassured by Alexandre’s company. He urged her to drink, then invited her outside; after they followed a suggestion about where to avoid police, they went to a rubbish room. The knife Alexandre had said he carried for protection against a possible terrorist attack contributed to Mila’s sense that she could not safely resist. The prosecution argues that the encounter there was forced, and that her silence and inability to fight back did not constitute consent.

Denial, Publicity, and Mila’s Voice

The case becomes public within hours of Alexandre’s police custody. Agence France-Presse reports that Jean Farel’s son, suspected of rape, has been taken into custody. Alexandre’s lawyer says that his client contests all the allegations and characterizes the night as what normally happens between two consenting people. The public statement gives the defense’s account a concise formulation even as the investigation and eventual trial remain unresolved.

Mila’s response also enters public circulation. After Jean Farel’s remarks about “twenty minutes of action” are repeated online, Mila publishes a post addressed to Alexandre. She rejects his claim that they simply experienced the night differently and says she had not consented. She recounts reporting the assault, undergoing medical examinations, fearing the possible consequences for her health, and struggling afterward to feel at home in her own body. Her account also identifies the injury she sees in the couple’s and Jean’s indifference to her suffering: the repeated assertion that she consented, or that alcohol and drugs explain what happened, compounds the original harm.

The post makes the difference between private testimony and public speech part of their conflict. Mila asks Alexandre to recognize the harm she says he caused so that she can have a chance to rebuild her life. The next morning, a newspaper publishes a manifesto signed by about thirty women intellectuals, rejecting the reduction of rape to a brief episode and emphasizing its lasting consequences. The circulation of Mila’s testimony and the manifesto brings the case into a wider post-#MeToo debate, while Alexandre’s lawyer argues on television that media attention risks compromising his client’s rights and influencing public opinion.

Trial, Interpretation, and Power

In the prosecution’s closing argument, Mila’s vulnerability is connected to the circumstances in which she followed Alexandre. The argument stresses that seeking company or accepting an invitation did not mean she wanted the later encounter. It also challenges the assumption that a person must physically resist or call for help to demonstrate non-consent: fear, silence, and a state of shock can shape a victim’s response. The knife mentioned earlier in the evening is presented as part of the threat Mila believed she faced, not as proof that she had freely chosen what followed.

The trial also places the two parties on unequal ground in the public imagination. The prosecution contrasts Alexandre’s education and athletic accomplishment with the ways Mila is disparaged for her academic history and appearance. This comparison is used to expose a hierarchy in which the accused’s prospects can attract sympathy while the complainant’s character and sexual history are scrutinized. Mila’s testimony and her public post insist that her experience cannot be erased by a polished defense or by assumptions about how a credible victim ought to behave.

The dispute over language continues through the proceedings. Alexandre maintains that Mila was willing; the prosecution describes that account as a rewriting of the event and points to his continued denial as an additional burden on her. Mila’s allegation is thus tested not only as a question of what happened on one night but also as a question of whether her conduct, speech, and distress will be recognized as evidence of non-consent.

Verdict and Aftermath

The verdict finds Alexandre guilty of rape and sentences him to five years in prison, suspended. He is released, with the sentence to be served if he reoffends. The outcome is therefore a conviction without immediate imprisonment, a distinction that gives the legal decision a consequential but limited form. Mila remains seated, holding her father’s hand, while her lawyers describe the verdict as unjust and partial and reserve the possibility of an appeal.

The judgment does not resolve the human conflict between the two accounts. In the courtroom, Alexandre looks toward Claire, who briefly signals to him and then approaches the glass enclosure to speak with him. Mila’s stillness beside her father offers a contrasting image: the person whose experience has been repeatedly disputed remains present after the legal ruling, but the verdict does not itself restore what she says was taken from her. The case leaves the relationship marked by the difference between a court’s finding and the longer work of acknowledging harm and rebuilding a life.