On Tuesday, around 30 sex workers backed by nine associations, including a medical NGO, went to the Constitutional Council to argue the law infringed their sexual and commercial freedom and made them more vulnerable to attack. Inspired by Sweden, it makes it a crime to buy sex but not to sell it, shifting the criminal responsibility to clients.
Hailed by many feminist groups at the time as an advance for women's rights, the law was assailed by sex workers as an infringement of "constitutional rights to personal autonomy and sexual freedom, respect of privacy, freedom of contract and freedom to do business.
These include agreeing to engage in unprotected sex or to have sex in isolated environments where they are more vulnerable to attack. She was shot dead while trying to stop a group of men robbing a client.
They accuse clients of exploiting their vulnerability. Issuing a robust defence Wednesday of the law, France's High Council for Equality Between Men and Women argued prostitution was "the opposite of sexual liberation" and "oppresses all women" by enshrining the notion of male domination.
The council pointed to a poll showing that 78 percent of French supported the ban as proof of widespread support. But a lawyer for the sex workers' camp, Patrice Spinosi, countered that by making it a crime to buy sex but not to sell it the state had created a "schizophrenic" situation and "infantilised prostitutes.
