Women represent 85% of the total victims of violent deaths within the couple in 2021 (143 deaths including 122 women and 21 men) against 82% in 2020, a stable share since 2006.
These figures “correspond more to the level of the number of violent deaths within the couple observed before the Covid-19 epidemic”, specifies the study of the Ministry of the Interior.
The year 2020, with “only” 102 women killed compared to 146 in 2019, had indeed been exceptional, without it being known precisely to what extent this drop could be explained by the periods of confinement and curfew.
For Isabelle Rome, Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men, the figures for 2021 are “chilling”.
“Despite the unprecedented efforts made by the state over the past five years, femicides remain at too high a level,” she told AFP.
Among the female victims, nearly one in three women (32%) had already suffered previous violence and 64% of them had reported this violence to the police. Of these, 84% had filed a complaint.
These “terrible” data show “possible avenues of evaluation”, told AFP Françoise Brié, director general of the National Federation Solidarités femmes (FNSF) which manages the 3919 telephone reception service for women victims of violence. .
– Arguments and separations not accepted –
“When a woman reports violence, we must better assess the danger she faces. But we must also progress in identifying violence: allow women to express themselves, to say the sudden facts”, added Ms. Brié .
“The protective measures for women have not been applied,” also lamented activist Ernestine Ronai, head of the Departmental Observatory of Violence Against Women in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Only three women victims out of 122, a “ridiculous” proportion, have benefited from a judicial protection measure, noted Ms. Ronai, for whom it would be necessary to “multiply by 10” the number of these orders.
As in previous years, disputes (31 cases), separations not accepted (27 cases) are the main causes of acting out (41%). They are closely followed by jealousy (25 cases) and the illness of the victim (21 cases).
In a third of the deaths, all sexes combined, the perpetrator used a bladed weapon: 37 are men and 13 women. For firearms (46 deaths) almost all (44) are used by men
Some 43% of homicide perpetrators committed or attempted suicide after the fact. In 2021, 46 suicides and 15 attempts were recorded, a stable number each year, which concerns almost exclusively men (60 men for every woman).
For Pauline Baron, from the feminist collective
These “have not been budgeted enough, they cannot be deployed everywhere: there are not enough anti-reconciliation bracelets and serious danger telephones to protect women”, estimated this activist.
It is also necessary to “improve prevention”, according to her: “education in emotional and sexual life is not implemented at school, whereas that is the way to break this reiteration of the violence of generation to generation”.
For Ernestine Ronai, “we do not sufficiently represent in our society the danger of violent men” who are “unpredictable”. As a result, “there is no small violence”, insists the activist: “a slap, you could say it’s not serious, but we don’t know how far it can go”.
