Dismay over charges after sex with minor

French children’s rights groups have expressed outrage after a 28-year-old man was charged with assaulting rather than raping an 11-year-old girl because investigators said the pair had consensual sex. The victim’s family has called for the father-of-two to be tried for rape, saying the girl only went home with the man because she was “paralysed” by fear and “unable to defend herself”.