They warm the spirits. In the middle of the presidential campaign, the crime figures published at the end of January give rise to regular skirmishes between the majority and the opposition. They even earned the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, a slippage judged “sexist” with the journalist Apolline de Malherbe, who asked him on BFMTV if the government had not “woke up a bit late” on security issues.
But what exactly are we talking about? These figures were published by the Ministerial Statistical Service for Homeland Security (SSMSI) on January 27. They relate to the year 2021 but the 19-page report posted on the ministry’s website makes it possible to visualize the variations since 2017 or even beyond. Several indicators are taken into account, divided into two main categories, attacks on persons (homicides, assaults, etc.) and attacks on property (thefts, burglaries, etc.).
In presenting these figures, the government welcomed the “historic drop in property damage between 2017 and 2021”, citing in particular the 25% decrease in burglaries. And he interpreted the increase in attacks on people, more particularly violence against women (domestic violence, sexual violence) as the logical consequence of the liberation of speech after the #MeToo movement and of the government policy put in place to promote collection of complaints. On the right and on the far right, on the contrary, we point to an increase in violence during the five-year term.
“Crime figures are not a government report”opposes sociologist Sébastian Roché, specialist in criminology and security issues, author of The Unfinished Nation: young people facing the police and schools (ed. Grasset). “It’s the same play constantly replayed, which is successful”, he quips. The researcher recalls that there is no real assessment of police action in France, as is done in Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom: “The successive governments do not measure the effects of their actions on delinquency, via experimental studies, modeling.”
“We can describe the trends but not link them to police policy. If we piloted the economy as we pilot crime, France would be a shipwreck.”
Sebastian Roché, sociologistat franceinfo
The figures which have just been published must indeed be considered with caution in more ways than one. First, they are temporary. A consolidated version will be published in June, after the presidential election. It is therefore difficult to compare the data for previous years with that of 2021, which is bound to evolve upwards or downwards. Second, delinquency is generally measured via two different sources.
The first comes from the police and gendarmerie services: it mainly concerns offenses noted following complaints or investigations on the initiative of the police. The second comes from the victimization survey “Living environment and security” (CVS), carried out by INSEE in partnership with the National Observatory of Delinquency and penal responses (ONDRP) and the SSMSI. Problem: the last survey available dates from 2019 and relates to figures from 2018. The ONDRP has indeed since been abolished and the CVS survey interrupted during the reform of this instrument and the Covid-19 pandemic.
There is therefore a chronological difference between these two sources. However, victimization surveys, conducted among a representative sample of the population, are essential to supplement police data. Because the latter do not take into account the victims who do not file a complaint. “We compare cabbage and carrots”observes Frédéric Péchenard, former director general of the national police under Nicolas Sarkozy and LR vice-president of the Ile-de-France regional council. “Some prefer to break the thermometer rather than give real numbers.”
If we take a closer look, what do the statistics show? In terms of attacks on people, violence against women will indeed jump in 2021. They are the first victims of intra-family violence, which has increased by 14% (as in 2019) and sexual violence, which has increased by 33% ( compared to 12% in 2019). For Océane Perona, a sociologist specializing in this violence, these figures may reflect “the greatest media coverage of these cases and the freedom of speech and listening” as well as “the extension of limitation periods” in legislation, encouraging people to complain later.
But for the specialist, “the link between these figures and the action of the majority is difficult to make”even if a “transformation of police practices, with complaints more frequently recorded”is at work.
“To get an idea of the evolution of this violence since 2017, it would be necessary to carry out a large survey of the general population and to question a representative sample and that costs a lot of money.”
Océane Pérona, sociologistat franceinfo
The number of facts recorded in 2021 in terms of sexual violence (mainly via complaints) is around 21,000. In the last major victimization survey, the number of women victims of this type of violence, outside or within the household, amounts to 155,000 on average each year. The proportion of those who push the door of a police station therefore remains quite low, around 13%. What weaken the assertion of Gérald Darmanin on France Inter at the end of January: “Women who are psychologically or physically affected by their partner systematically file a complaint.”
What about the increase in the rest of the violence? Between 2017 and 2021, intentional blows and injuries, excluding domestic violence, increased by 12%. Jean-Michel Fauvergue, LREM deputy who advises Emmanuel Macron on security during the campaign, wants to see the increase in violence against those responsible for public authority, police, gendarmes, elected officials… and even more recently against hospital staff. . From the mobilizations against the Labor Law to that of the “yellow vests” and opponents of vaccination, “we are the only country in Europe where there have been so many demonstrations, with acts and immediate violence, amplified by social networks”advances the chosen one.
If the observation is shared by the police unions, these figures are an opportunity to draw coverage to them on old claims. For Thierry Clair, secretary general of Unsa, the criminal response to violence against the police, including “the legitimacy” and “social status” have regressed, is not up to the task. The latter, whose workload is weighed down by an increasingly important judicialization, which results in an increase in complaints, are considered “like ordinary citizens” when they are supposed to “enforce the law”.
Former cop Frédéric Péchenard supports: “Non-application or bad application” court decisions and “the systematic adjustment of sentences” [pour les peines inférieures à six mois] to avoid incarceration reinforce “the feeling of impunity”. And to cite the rise in homicides, an indicator that does not contain “dark figure”. This has increased by 12% in five years, from 917 to 1,026. The fact remains that the figure for 2021 is not consolidated and that, compared to the growth of the French population, the homicide rate per inhabitant is holding steady. as much as 1.50 per 100,000.
“The proof of the evidence of the appeasement of social relations in France and more generally in the West is the evolution of the homicide rate over thirty years.”
Sebastian Roché, sociologistat franceinfo
This evolution continues, “does not depend on penal policies” but of the “transformation of lifestyles and sensitivities”experienced dropouts during “shocks”, such as the attacks of 2015 and the Covid-19 pandemic, specifies Sébastian Roché. But here again, it is more the socio-economic response than the police that makes it possible to curb the phenomenon or not. Thus, a lower amortization of the economic and social consequences of the pandemic in the United States has potentially participated in a 30% explosion in the number of homicides across the Atlantic in 2020, as the analysis lhe American research center Pew Research Center (in English). For Sébastian Roché, the policy of “whatever the cost” in France could act indirectly as a security policy, limiting the increase in acting out.
Finally, with regard to damage to property, external factors have also influenced the figures, which the majority welcomes. Burglaries, which had logically dropped in 2020 with confinements, continued to decline in 2021 with curfews and the increase in teleworking. As for the thefts committed on vehicles, they are gradually decreasing all over the world with the evolution of the technologies of the manufacturers.
Finally, one of the only data that makes everyone agree is the increase in online scams (+15% of facts observed between 2017 and 2021). On this delinquency of opportunity, linked to the rise of the Internet, “we cannot engage the responsibility of the majority”, argues Jean-Michel Fauvergue. A figure which, like the others, ultimately tells us very little about the responsibility of the government in this mixed picture of delinquency.