The old certainties of the Palais Bourbon shattered this afternoon. A protest, a roar, then a surge. Survivors of sexual violence breached the gates. They didn't just demand change. They took the stage.
This was no fringe demo. This was the sharp end of a long-festering rage. For years, the French justice system has been a fortress of inaction. Statute of limitations on rape: a brick wall. Victims hit it, again and again. Today, they didn't just hit it. They brought it down.
Sources inside the chamber tell me the deputies froze. Some fled. Others watched, silent, as a woman grabbed the presidential microphone. 'We are not statistics,' she said. 'We are the law.' The chant went up. 'Pas de prescription. Justice pour toutes.'
This is a reckoning, yes. But it is also a power play. The Macron government is weak. Polling shows a trust deficit on justice. The 'gilets jaunes' scar is still raw. Now this. The President's men are scrambling. They fear a contagion. If Paris falls, what about Lyon? What about Marseille?
The real game is inside the assembly hall tonight. Backbenchers are whispering. A cross-party bill to scrap the statute for serious sexual crimes is suddenly, quietly, being drafted. The protesters know this. They are not leaving. They have set up camp in the corridors.
This is not a single protest. This is a symptom. The old contract between state and citizen is fraying. And in the Palais Bourbon, the walls are thin. I can hear the chanting from the press gallery. It does not sound like it will stop.
One protester handed me a note, torn from a notebook: 'The time limit on justice is the time limit on impunity.' That is the line that will echo through the lobbies tonight. The statute of limitations is suspended. Not by law. By the weight of bodies in the chamber.
Watch the floor. Watch the whips. This is just the beginning.
