2. That it is not the famous writer, the screen star, or the influential poli tician upon whom the law vents its spleen, but upon the lowly, the weak and the unknown.

If we consider the accused by age group we find:

Under 20

20-30

30-40

40-60 Over 60

4.1%

27.6%

33.4%

7.2%

We see that over 40% of the accused are over forty. In England the Wolfenden report showed a similar breakdown: the homosexual drama becomes more intense in maturity and old age.

While still on the question of age let us point out this paradox: while the law proclaims itself to be justified as a protection of youth from adults, it— the law is applied equally to those cases in which minors are involved with other minors. As one lawyer ironically wrote me: "if the administrators of our boarding schools wished to do so, they could create a veritable log jam in the courts concerned with such offenses..."

By sex we find that 97.5% of the accused are male and only 2.5% are female. While the law in principle applies equally well to females it would appear that female homosexuality is either considered to be less serious, is less wide-spread, or, at the very least, is less detectable than is masculine homosexuality.

As to marital status, forty percent of the accused either are or have been married. Marriage, thus, is no safeguard-in fact to the contrary. Men presently married constitute almost thirty percent of the accused; men who are married and fathers of children, twenty-six percent. Imagine the number of homes which are tragically wrecked and dishonored, not so much by the actual deeds of the accused as by the scandal and disgrace of their imprisonment.

As to nationality, 95.5% of the ac-

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cused are French and 4.5% are foreigners.

The matter of foreigners brings up the grave problem of prohibition of residency for the offense of homosexuality. In 1942 there were two prohibitions; in 1948, three; in 1950, six; in 1952, two; 1954, three; in 1955, one. Is it conceivable that in the France of the "rights of man" an individual can be uprooted and even expelled because of a simple sexual act?

Let us now consider the sentences applied, but allow me one preliminary observation. These statistics contain three grave lacunae:

1. Unlike the Wolfenden Report, we do not have any figures as to the number of cases detected by the police but not brought into the courts. It would be interesting to know the centage of cases "not followed up." In England these amounted to 20%.

per-

2. We have no information as to the length of time spent in prison by persons while awaiting trial, though we know that this period is often quite long. In one recent case a Parisian, thirty years old, caught in a hotel with a twenty-year old partner, was detained for six months before being brought to trial. He was then given a three months' suspended sentence.

3. We have no information (and understandably so) on cases in which blackmail has figured. Homosexuals are often victims of blackmail which is encouraged by the very severity of the law. Nor do we have any information as to the attitude of the police toward the blackmailer. (Blackmail is, of course, difficult to detect for almost always the homosexual victim, with little protection against the blackmailer, accepts the conditions imposed and remains silent.)

Now, I come to an analysis of the court sentences. At the outset it appears that, as in England, the number of convictions is steadily increasing as