Harassment in packs: one message is enough

Article 222-33-2-2 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to “harass a person by repeated comments or behaviour the purpose or effect of which is to degrade their living conditions, resulting in an impairment of their physical or mental health”.
In a law passed on 3 August 2018, the legislator added a second paragraph to this article, which stipulates that the offence is also constituted “when these comments or behaviours are imposed on the same victim by several persons, in a concerted manner or at the instigation of one of them, even though each of these persons has not acted repeatedly”.
The legislator thus wished to punish acts of “harassment in packs”.
This paragraph specifies that, for the offence to be constituted, the acts of harassment must be repeated, but require not be committed by a single perpetrator.
In a ruling dated 29 May 2024, the Court of Cassation stated:
“Having established that the accused took a personal part in repeated comments or behaviour imposed on the same victim with the object or effect of degrading the victim’s living conditions, emanating from several authors, with the knowledge that the act he was committing was part of a repetition, it was not required to identify, date and qualify all the messages emanating from other persons and directed against the civil party, or to verify that the plaintiff’s message had actually been read by the person targeted”.
Cass. crim., 29-05-2024, n° 23-80.806, F-B, Cassation
In this case, the author had sent just one message, drowned in the flood of messages from the harassment pack, a message that the victim may not even have read.
He felt that sending this single message did not constitute an offence.
The Court of Cassation found that the perpetrator had “knowingly taken part in a pack movement, and that his actions had the object or effect, by causing the victim to lose her schooling, become isolated and require police protection, of causing a deterioration in her living conditions resulting in damage to her physical or mental health, as certified by a medical certificate”.
The Court concluded that the condemnation was justified: regardless of the number of messages sent, any participation, however small, in harassment by a pack is punishable by law.
Maître Grégory DAMY has over 19 years’ experience and was a member of the criminal defence group for several years. He will fervently defend the interests of any victim. The law firm has become an expert in defending victims in both criminal and civil cases.