Will French TV campaign to stop parents smacking children lead to a ban? Fat chance

Another campaign in the form of a 30-second spot on TV and Internet, will be launched this week in France by the Fondation de l'enfance (Foundation for childhood) designed to show why it's not all right to smack a child.

According to the Fondation, in three out of every four French families, parents resort at some point to smacking or slapping their children.

We're talking about under-fives here!

"Any abuse of children can affect their physical and psychological health," says the co-ordinator of the campaign Dr Gilles Lazimi on the organisation's official website.

He wants legislation introduced to bring France into line with most other European countries

The video, is designed to illustrate that this form of "education" is not only counterproductive but also dangerous.

It's also supposed to shock parents.

(screenshot from Fondation de l'enfance video)

 Here we go again. A campaign meant to raise awareness of an issue but one which will probably be met at best with disinterested indifference.

The evidence that it'll have little or no impact is overwhelming.

23 European countries have already passed legislation making corporal punishment, of which smacking is a part, a punishable offence.

Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine,

"Status of corporal punishment: total abolition has been achieved – corporal punishment is prohibited in the home, schools, penal systems and alternative care settings"

But France looks as though it's in no hurry to do likewise.

A bill was presented to the National Assembly by the former parliamentarian and paediatrician  Edwige Antier in 2010.

Nothing happened.

Just over a year ago TF1 ran a report on the "Bon usage de la fessée" in which the case of one mother was used to explain how and why so many parents think it's all right to smack their children...when it's done "properly".

And even though the report also focused on a workshop to encourage alternative sets of parenting skills, the inclusion of a doctor saying it was "all right on occasions to smack a child" simply made the three-and-a-half minute piece an apology for an accepted practice.

(screenshot from Fondation de l'enfance video)

On Monday, France 2 featured the launch of the Fondation's campaign towards the end of its prime time news (here's the link - after the commercial fast forward to 31.37)

The least can be said is that just over one year down the line, attitudes towards smacking seem to be pretty much the same and the format for covering the issue is exactly that: a format.

First up one mother "explaining" that a "gentle" smack was sometimes both appropriate and necessary for her children "to learn".

"I smack him, not in a way which is intended to hurt but to demonstrate to him that he has passed a boundary I've already defined with him," said 28-yea-old teacher Claire Boudaoud.

"And after the smack we talk about it: why I had to do it and put it into context."

Another teacher (France 2 obviously had a stock of them lined up) Chahra Joubrel was also interviewed to put forward the other point of view.

She had smacked her children in the past but now thinks it's the wrong method of disciplining a child.

"It reflects domination by the adult over the child and is certainly not in the child's best interests," she said.

And thrown in for good measure was "the expert" - this time around in the form of psychoanalyst Claude Halmos whose contribution turned what should otherwise have been an objective report into one which became the same inevitable apology for a common practice throughout the country and down the generations.

"We must not confuse systematic beating of a child with the occasional smack given by a parent who loves and respects their child but at a certain moment has no other option. That sort of example is not one of mistreating a child" she said.

Great. So now the parents who are smacking the children are the victims - or what?

And that's an essential part of the problem.

Health professionals in France, according to a poll carried out in 2010,  are overwhelmingly opposed to any sort of legislation banning smacking.

The prevailing belief it seems among most French - and even those foreigners who've chosen to live here - is that the occasional smack under the right circumstances is an effective and appropriate method of education and disciplining a child.

Just take a look at the responses to a similar post last year on the subject on a forum for English-speakers living in France.

France might "need a total ban on parents smacking kids" according to Lazimi,

But convincing lawmakers might be more than the proverbial uphill struggle.

Let's hope the video helps.

The "proper" way to smack a child

All right so it's not exactly what a report on TF1's prime time news on Tuesday evening was saying, but in a way, it surely wasn't far from it.

It's all a matter of interpretation.

"Bon usage de la fessée" ran the title of a three-and-a-half minute clip introduced by anchor Laurence Ferrari and although it has been tempered somewhat on the site to read "Pour bien punir ses enfants, tout est question de mesure" the underlying message remains the same doesn't it?

TF1's report was part of an ongoing series looking at the education - in the broad sense of the word - of children and featured a couple with three young boys.

The mother, Marie-Laure Vital, admitted, just as 80 per cent of French parents apparently do, that she occasionally smacks her children.

Vital sometimes feels "unable to cope" and because she reportedly often feels that the punishment - whatever form it might take - isn't doing its job properly or is inappropriate, she has joined a workshop which specifically teaches parenting skills.

"L'atelier des parents" is a one of a kind in France and on the agenda during TF1's filming was the subject of punishment, with one of the workshop's psychologists, Caroline Iruela, detailing what sort of discipline was unacceptable and the eight parents present exchanging their experiences.

So far so good.

But then up pops a doctor - a paediatrician no less - with over 30 years experience.

And while he maintains, just as you would expect from a professional that, "If smacking is carried out to hurt or publicly humiliate a child, it's not effective" take a look at his gesture as he begins this contribution.

Doesn't it seem to imply that an "appropriate" slap on the hands is perfectly all right as it doesn't really constitute smacking?

Last year after a woman was given a six-month suspended sentence for smacking her child, the lines of a 'phone-in programme on national radio were buzzing with indignation.

Listeners were appalled by the decision and critical of the invited guest, paediatrician and parliamentarian Edwige Antier. who has tried to introduce a law to ban smacking.

"A mother should be a 'protector' and what's needed in France is a law, as exists in 18 other European countries, abolishing the right parents have to hit a child," said Antier during the show.

It wasn't a point of view with which many listeners agreed and they're not alone.

A 2010 poll among health professionals showed that 88 per cent of them were also against the introduction of such a law.

While domestic corporal punishment, of which smacking is one form, is against the law in many European countries, it seems to be acceptable in France.

Screenshot from Council of Europe video "Raise your hand against smacking"

And while the prevailing thinking runs along the lines of "A smack from time to time has never hurt anyone," (read some of the comments to TF1's report), that 2008 Council of Europe "Raise your hand against smacking" campaign calling on all member states to pass laws prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment of children, including smacking, looks set to have little impact on lawmakers here.

Smacking's all right isn't it? As long as it's done "properly".

French woman receives six-month suspended sentence for smacking her child

Screenshot from Council of Europe video "Raise your hand against smacking"

"Yes I was smacked and it never did me any harm. In fact I deserved it," said one caller to Jean-Marc Morandini's 'phone-in programme on Europe 1 radio on Thursday.

"Smacking is not the same as child abuse, don't try to exaggerate," said another.

Both were responding to comments by Morandini's invited guest, paediatrician Edwige Antier, who was on the show to talk about spanking and the need for a law in France to ban it.

Antier was defending a ruling earlier this week in which a court in northern France gave a woman a six-month suspended sentence and ordered her to receive psychological counselling, after finding her guilty of wilful violence towards a minor for having slapped her nine-year-old daughter.

The incident that led to the woman being found guilty dates back to last December.

As reported in the French media, the woman, who had apparently been drinking, slapped her daughter during an argument at home.

The girl ran out of the house and into the street where she was intercepted by a passerby who happened to be a social worker.

Seeing the state the girl was in, the social worker took her to the nearest police station.

Her mother was then brought in for questioning and charged.

"The punishment is totally out of proportion," said the woman's lawyer, Alice Cohen-Sabban, after the suspended sentence was handed down.

"She has never needed social services to intervene for anything, she has never been convicted and although she had been drinking when the incident happened she is not an alcoholic," Cohen-Sabban told Agence France Presse.

But that's not quite how Antier sees it - or any other case of smacking come to that.

And when Morandini asked her whether she found the ruling "normal" the 68-year-old, who is also a member of parliament for the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) and tabled a bill in 2009 to make domestic corporal punishment unlawful in France, was quite clear about where she stands.

"Imagine you were faced with someone you knew who was much larger than you and had been drinking, and they turned round and hit you," she retorted.

"Would you find that normal?

"The law as it stands at the moment gives a mother the right to hit a child, and even a babysitter, if the motive is 'an educational one'," she continued.

"But the mother should be a 'protector' and what's needed in France is a law, as exists in 18 other European countries, abolishing the right parents have to hit a child."

Not many of the callers to the programme seemed to agree with her.

Nor did a lot of the comments left on French websites such as that of Le Point or Radio France Internationale in reaction to the suspended sentence handed down to the woman and the issue of smacking in general.

Ranging from " it doesn't do any harm," through "limits need to be set and children have to be disciplined" to "the sentencing in this case will just do more harm than good to the family and especially the girl involved," it certainly seems as though Antier's views put her in the minority.

And that's perhaps not surprising as a poll conducted among health professionals in France just last year showed that 88 per cent of them were against the introduction of a law banning smacking.

Domestic corporal punishment, of which smacking is one form, is against the law in many European countries, but not in France.

In 2008 the Council of Europe launched its "Raise your hand against smacking campaign" and called on all member states to pass laws prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment of children, including smacking.