After the Bourgoin-Jallieu feminicide in early May, two former victims of domestic violence recount what they suffered and their anger against the justice system. Faced with their incomprehension, the public prosecutor of Grenoble explains how the investigators and the courts work.
On the night of Saturday May 7 to Sunday May 8, a woman is found dead in a car, near a hospital in Lyon. This woman is Julie, 26 years old and mother of a three-year-old boy. That Saturday, her child is with her ex-partner and the 32-year-old calls her to come look for his son in a parking lot in Bourgoin-Jallieu. A little before midnight, the child is found alone, the police find traces of blood on the spot.
Seven months before this feminicide, Julie’s ex-spouse had already been convicted of violence against her. This drama violently puts on the table the subject of follow-up and care for perpetrators of domestic violence. It also stirs up anger associations like Warrior Heartsan association where former victims of conjugal violence come to the aid of women and men who suffer the blows of their spouse.
This association has references all over France, such as Emeline in Nord-Isère. At 39, this mother of four is immersed in her journey with each feminicide. “Your friends call you and tell you: you see, it could have been you” she says with tears in her eyes, because she got out of it recently. “We are stubborn, we tell ourselves that in any case he will leave us alone but no, he does not leave us alone. We can file a complaint, do whatever we want … they are like that, they are offices.” She filed a complaint seven times against her former spouse, everything was dismissed. Even the protective order doesn’t really work. “The next day he was there, he threatened me, he attacked me, he hit me. He broke my front door, I filed a complaint and it was still dismissed! Justice is not absolutely not behind us.”
I no longer believe in justice at all, that’s clear!
Her ex-husband hit her for five years, never sued while Emeline and her children went through hell. “I no longer believe in justice at all, that’s clear!” She didn’t even call the police anymore because she had the feeling that they were not reacting, or not quickly enough. “Once I told them, listen, it’s simple if you don’t move, one day I’m going to take action! By dint of suffering … he hit me pregnant, blows feet, my mouth was bleeding” He also makes her leave the maternity ward two hours after giving birth so that she can follow his daughter, transferred to Vienna because she “was born at six and a half months because he beat me up.” He lstrangles in front of her neighbor when she makes the decision to leave him.
More recognition for the victims
She tells under the watchful eye of Nathalie, referent for Hearts of Warriors in the Rhône She suffered for 15 years the violence of her ex-companion, he was issued a reminder to the law. One of the problems with domestic violence according to is recognition of victims. The woman or the man victim of conjugal violence are “very badly considered. And then to be heard, to open the door of a police station and to say “hello, I am a victim” already it is very complicated to do. When you do it and you come across a gendarme or a policeman who tells us “no, but it doesn’t matter”, that’s not what we want to hear.” For her, “There is nothing to do. I left, no one helped me. They told me ‘we have to leave’, yes, but leave where? It’s easy to say leave.”
One day I took the knife. There was my son in front of me, he was the one who told me no, otherwise I would plant my ex-husband.
The association helps victims find and pay for accommodation to flee. Emeline and Nathalie invest as much as they can but for them, nothing will really change as long as the perpetrators of domestic violence do not fear justice. “They are not being punished!” Nathalie gets annoyed. “They start again, they don’t care because they know they’re in no danger… well that’s a way of speaking, but they don’t fear much.” She herself spat on her ex-husband to defend herself and found herself in police custody 24 hours after the complaint he filed. “When you see Jacqueline Sauvage who has been in prison for years because she was beaten up for 40 years, and she is the one who ends up in jail… a while ago, no, justice does not not doing its job properly.” Like Emeline, Nathalie almost took action, one day too many. “One day I took the knife. There was my son in front of me, he was the one who told me no, otherwise I would plant my ex-husband.”
– Noemie Philippot
Justice cannot follow the author all his life
Except thata murder is a murder, whether committed by the executioner or the victim, it is then up to the courts to assess the circumstances. This is the difficulty: domestic violence is the extreme intimacy that crosses the rigor and inflexibility of the law. “We are sure a practice that touches the heart of the family, of the individual, so it is normal that there is this feeling” says Camille Morel, assistant lawyer in charge of domestic violence at the Grenoble prosecutor’s office. “Justice is complex, it’s a complex world. It responds to specific rules that judges must enforce whatever the cost.” The other difficulty is that justice is not intended to “to have a follow-up on the totality of the life of the author.” Thus, even if substantial sentences are decided, if there is a follow-up for a certain time, “Zero risk does not exist. No matter how much we do, there are always situations that will unfortunately lead to tragic cases.”
– Noemie Philippot
The wish of the victims and their loved ones, once they have succeeded in talking about what they are going through to the police or the gendarmes, is that it will lead to a conviction. To get there, justice must imperatively collect evidence and this work is all the more delicate as the subject is complex. “Anyone who says ‘I am a victim of domestic violence’, they are told that we are taking a detailed hearing and that there will be no handrail” explains the public prosecutor of Grenoble Éric Vaillant. “We gave our investigators a very precise framework of questions to which they must answer. If this investigation is not well done from the start, there is less chance afterwards of arriving at a conviction of the author.”
There are plenty of circumstances where judges, in a democratic state, cannot convict.
Éric Vaillant assures him, the word of the victims is “more and more, well taken into account” but “Without proof, nothing can be done.” He mentions several situations in which there is not enough to tip the scales in favor of the victim or the alleged perpetrator. The times when there are no witnesses, when there are no traces of beatings and there are no photos, or still others when the victims withdraw their complaint. “There are plenty of circumstances where judges, in a democratic state, cannot convict. You have to hear it, it’s complicated and that’s why this penal work cannot be the only one to work. ”
– Noemie Philippot
According to him, it is necessary an intervention in particular by victim support associations and work on supporting authors. Several tools exist for this, such as removal measures, courses of accountability of the violent spouse if the court deems this to be relevant. For the victims, there is the anti-reconciliation bracelet where the phone serious danger. Julie had received one, but it did not serve her when her former companion hit her on the night of May 7 to 8 in Bourgoin-Jallieu.
More and more neighbors report domestic violence
All these explanations will never relieve the relatives of women who died under the blows of their spouse or ex-companion, but justice is progressing on the subject estimates the public prosecutor of Grenoble, at the same time as the company. “The subject of domestic violence is really the number 1 priority of the Grenoble prosecutor’s office and of all the prosecutor’s offices in France, because it is a major national cause. I see changes” especially during hearings. “I realized during the last hearings that many cases of domestic violence had been revealed by the neighbors, and that is a new phenomenon.” For a long time, neighbors believed that “It was private, we don’t get involved.” For Éric Vaillant, this is a strong sign which, in his view, shows that “this desire of the whole nation to better fight against domestic violence is beginning to spread throughout the population.”
We really need women to continue to go to the police and gendarmerie services.
And if he recognizes that there is “good and less good professionals” in the police station to receive the victimsÉric Vaillant insists on the fact that he “Strong decisions have been taken by the police and gendarmerie services to train in a very specific and strong way the police and gendarmes who receive victims in general, and in particular victims of domestic violence. […] Today, I do not like to hear the speech “do not file a complaint because you will be badly received”, because I find that it is counterproductive. In reality, we really need women to continue to go to the police and gendarmerie services, even if there may be exceptions. Everyone avoids having these exceptions. We are better and better received there by professionals who are more and more trained.
Domestic violence represents 30% of cases judged immediate appearance in Grenoble. A figure sign of the investment of justice on the subject, also a sign that the fight will still be long to eradicate this scourge.