Humiliating new members of a school, society or work place is common throughout the world. In France, hazing has always been sexually charged and usually involves animals, particularly chickens and pigs. After some serious incidents and scandals, initiation ceremonies were outlawed in France in 1998. The punishment for forcing someone to carry out a humiliating or degrading act, or to consume excessive amounts of alcohol, is now six months imprisonment and a €7500 fine. But every year new instances of humiliating initiations still occur at France’s higher education institutions.