LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF THE

Pétain passed an ordinance declaring that the age of sexual consent for homosexuals would be twenty-one, while the age of consent for hetero sexuals would remain at thirteen.1 As the first legal penalization of sodomy in the history of the French Republic, this ordinance remained in the penal code for decades after the fall of the Vichy government and France’s liberation in 1945. The law’s restrictive nature over homo sexual acts was further compounded by the subsequent legislation of July 30, 1960, which authorized the government and police to take “all measures necessary to fight against homosexuality.”2 These measures focused on prosecuting public acts of indecency and again marked