Gérer les contradictions du droit « par le bas »

Abstract

À partir du cas des politiques de la prostitution, l’article analyse la manière dont un changement d’action publique (la loi pour la sécurité intérieure) est interprété par la profession chargée de son opérationnalisation (la police). Quand l’introduction d’un nouvel instrument juridique ( law in the book) exacerbe les contradictions du droit (la prostituée est à la fois victime de proxénétisme et coupable de racolage) et que la création d’un nouveau segment professionnel chargé de sa mise en œuvre bouleverse le dispositif policier, c’est au niveau des pratiques policières de contrôle de la prostitution que se redéfinit le droit ( law in action ). L’analyse des phases successives de mise en œuvre d’une politique publique montre que, sur le court terme, la logique politique (la lutte contre le racolage) l’emporte et bouleverse le système des segments professionnels mais que, sur le moyen terme, les logiques professionnelles (la prééminence de l’enquête de proxénétisme) reprennent le dessus.

Policing Commercial Sex in 1970s France: Regulating the Racialized Sexual Order

“…The legislative framework enabled the authorities to regulate the racialized, classbased, and gendered sexual order because it allowed for the police's selective tolerance, even though this was not formulated in law. Mainsant (2013a) argues that law is made 'from below' in the regulation of sex work, which means that 'law in the book' differs from 'law in action'. Police action gives meaning to the legislation through discretionary surveillance and discretionary tolerance (Mainsant, 2012).…”

“…Moreover, white sex workers themselves referred to the discourse on North African men and interracialized sex to affirm their own belonging to French society (Shepard, 218). During the sex workers’ protests of 1975, a group of 150 sex workers organized to claim their rights and protest about arbitrary arrests, corruption, harassment, and prosecution (Mathieu, 1999; Aroney, 2018). This offered some space in societal debates for sex workers, who claimed their agency by arguing that they could reject North African clients.…”

“…In so doing, this paper also speaks to critical race feminist scholarship on commercial sex. Researchers have argued that the regulation of commercial sex can reveal underlying concerns about the social order (Mainsant, 2013a;Phoenix, 2009). More specifically, scholars have used a critical race (feminist) perspective to show how the regulation of the social order is dependent on the intersections of race, gender, class and migrationstatus of people selling sex (McClintock, 1992;Benoit et al, 2019b;Benoit et al, 2019a;Butler, 2015).…”

The gradual transformation of a weak but enduring regime: contemporary French prostitution policy in transition (1946–2016)

“…The subsequent adoption of the loi pour la sécurité intérieure (LSI) in 2003 has been a key focal point of recent scholarship on contemporary French prostitution policy because it appears to contrast with previous policies adopted under the banner of abolitionism (cf. Allwood 2003;Deschamps 2005;Mainsant 2013;Mathieu 2011Mathieu , 2012Vernier 2005). In particular, the law constructed prostitution as a law-and-order and domestic security issue and, as a result, shifted the policy emphasis away from the provision of social support and towards the implementation of strict anti-soliciting measures.…”

Between Problematisation and Invisibilisation

“…The general understanding that prostitution should be tolerated translated into specific and racialised tolerance, to protect 'public order' as a way of protecting the sexual order. This was possible because police services with a mandate to police sex were explicitly concerned with the general protection of a 'public order' (Benabou, 1987;Mainsant, 2012Mainsant, , 2013a. Police justified particularistic implementation ex post facto as a 'practical decision', taken out of consideration for public and social order.…”