After the shock, the anger. A hundred residents gathered this Friday, December 17, on the Place de Verdun, in Auch, in the city center, to proclaim their disgust, a week after the rape of a 42-year-old woman, in the middle of the street , by an 18-year-old man.
“We’re fed up, we want to get angry sometimesexplains Joe, who lives on the street where the crime took place. We want to say ‘by what right? By what right do you talk to me like that, you hiss at me, you make remarks to me on how I am dressed, hair, the color of my hair? ‘ No, I think that’s not appropriate. “
The drop of too much
Everyone here seems to know an assaulted person, when it is not herself, like Juliette, one of the co-organizers, she is part of the collective of Badly Braised Witches: “It’s the last straw, in fact. That it happens in the middle of the street, in Auch, on a large boulevard, it’s amazing. We know some in the collective to whom it happened, including me, and so on. that is why it is important to eradicate this behavior. “
Among the participants, younger, like Sophia, who confesses “not to have been completely serene coming here, I was accompanied by a friend, and even there, to go back home, I will be a little afraid, to come back alone at night like that.”
Among the participants, a few men as well, like Stéphan, who lives near Auch: “I think 95% of men are not like that, it would be unbearable for me to suggest that we don’t care, that we are indifferent to the situation.”
A strong mobilization, in the middle of the city, while a flood of cars flowed without stopping around the roundabout, to be clearly visible, and to make it understood that this feeling of insecurity is almost permanent, for women.
The 18-year-old man arrested last Monday was remanded in custody. A judicial investigation was opened by the prosecutor’s office in Agen.