France – The Government Launches a New Program to Address the High Rate of Domestic Violence
Author: Administrator
Date: September 13, 2019
September 5, 2019 – Violence against women in France: President Macron has vowed to end a French tradition of serious domestic abuse.
France has one of the highest death rates from domestic violence in western Europe, and the lingering belief that it is simply a matter of ‘passion’ is not helping, writes Adam Sage.
On the surface, Morgane Seliman’s life seemed enviable. She had a husband, a son, a job in a bakery and a home in a small village in northern France.
At home, however, she experienced the sort of terror that is familiar in a country that has traditionally turned a blind eye to domestic violence – at least until this week, when President Macron decided at long last to tackle it.
“In three hours’ time I’m going to smash your head in,” her husband would say. Invariably, he did. He would slap her, punch her, kick her, pull her hair, telling her all the while that she was worthless. Sometimes she begged for mercy but that made him more brutal. In general she gritted her teeth and waited for the blows to end.
It took her four years to summon the courage to go to the nearest police station. She told officers that she was in danger. They advised her to change the locks. “They just thought we’d had an argument,” said Ms Seliman, now 36, who has written a book entitled Il M’a VolE Ma Vie (He Stole My Life).
Many of the 219,000 French women who are attacked each year by their husbands or partners tell of the terror, guilt and shame that prevents them from seeking help, and of the indifference they encounter when they do.
This week the French government pledged to curb the violence.
Edouard Philippe, the Prime Minister, said that each region would have a prosecutor specializing in domestic abuse, that men accused of violence would get electronic monitors to check that they stay away and that the government would spend Eu5 million to create 1,000 extra beds in refuges for victims of domestic abuse, on top of the 5,000 or so that already exist. However, Caroline de Haas, a prominent feminist, said that hundreds of millions of euros were needed to tackle the issue.
Last year police in France registered 121 cases in which women were killed and their partners were the principal suspect; a fifth of all murders. This year’s figure reached 100 on Saturday, when the body of a 21-year-old woman was found by a railway line after police had been called amid reports of screams and found nothing amiss. The woman’s boyfriend has been charged with her murder and an internal police investigation has begun.
Cultural traditions help to explain the figures in France, according to Celine Piques, a feminist activist. She said that for centuries the murders of wives by their husbands were widely considered to be “crimes passionels” .
Spain has had a 40 per cent drop in the number of women killed by their partners after launching a Eu1 billion campaign that involved training for police and magistrates, a drive to handle allegations of domestic abuse within 72 hours, and the widespread use of restraining orders for violent men.
In France, the domestic abuse budget is only Eu78 million a year, and cases can take months to come to court.
Ms Seliman said: “We’ve got a long way to go.” After repeatedly asking police for protection, she finally came across an officer who took her case seriously and put her in touch with an association for victims of domestic violence.
In 2013 her husband was convicted of assaulting her and sentenced to a year in jail. He was given a restraining order after his release but this has been lifted. “It goes in cycles these days. He’ll leave me alone for a few months, and then he will turn up and hammer on the door. I call the police and they do respond now, mainly because of the media interest in my case. But I am not free.”
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