France Wants to Punish Clients, Not Prostitutes, in Newly Proposed Bill

The French government will consider a bill going to parliament Wednesday that will punish the clients of prostitutes.

The prostitutes themselves will not but prosecuted, meanwhile.

Prostitution in France is currently legal, but pimping, soliciting in public and operating brothels are against the law, according to TIME. The proposal calls for a 1,500 euro fine for first-time offenders, and a doubled fee the second time a client is caught involved with a prostitute. They'll also have to show up for classes that touch on the negative societal repercussions of the industry, which has recently skyrocketed in France as more foreign prostitutes, particularly from Asia and eastern Europe, look for work.

The bill pushes decriminalization of the some-40,000 prostitutes thought to be working in the European country, rejecting a previous piece of legislation that bars street solicitation. The proposal will additionally help foreign prostitutes live in France legally if they work toward leaving the industry.

Maud Olivier, one of the main authors of the bill, said the important part would be to "[get rid of] the consequence of unequal and archaic relationships between men and women."

As France moves toward one of the toughest laws against sex trafficking and prostitution, other European countries are watching to see how things will pan out.

"If France moves, that could be the turning point for other European countries," secretary-general of the Mouvement du Nid Gregoire Thery told TIME. The group works to help out an estimated 5,000 prostitutes in France annually.

Supporters of the bill say that this kind of legislation could stamp out oppression of prostitutes, and help scale back on sex trafficking.

"The current law is not on our side, so we keep being trapped in that system, and the client knows that, he plays with that," Rosen Hicher, who worked as a prostitute from 1988 to 2009, stated. "When we hear about 'prostitution by choice,' I think that it is still prostitution as violence toward women, and we cannot keep tolerating that violence anymore."

But the opposition insists that the proposal will not, in fact, grant the prostitute more power, and will push many into hiding.

"More clandestine practices means we would find ourselves in more secluded places, and therefore subject to possible violence," 31-year-old escort Thierry Schaffauser told the Associated Press.