France makes incest a crime

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France finally made incest a crime in its own right yesterday - reinstating it into the country's penal code more than 200 years after French revolutionaries threw it out as a "religious taboo". Until now, incest was lumped together in French law in the category "rape" and "sex abuse", but French MPs have passed a bill specifically singling it out as an offence. [...]

The most controversial reference to incest in modern French culture came from the late singer Serge Gainsbourg in his duet with his daughter Charlotte named "Lemon Incest". Translated as "Inceste de citron" a wordplay on "un zeste de citron" (a tang of lemon), the song caused a scandal when released in 1985, as critics considered it glamorised paedophilia and incest. Charlotte, 13 at the time, appeared in a shirt and knickers next to her father in the video clip, singing ambiguous lyrics apparently referring to a physical love between an adult and a child. Gainsbourg said the song in no way condoned incest.

source: Article 'France makes incest a crime' by Henry Samuel in Paris; www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7085759/France-makes-incest-a-crime.html; Telegraph; 28 January 2010