attacks, incivility and expressions of suicidal intent by users up 12% compared to 2022

Nearly 16,000 reports of assault were reported by employees last year through the 900 agencies in France.

Nearly 16,000 assault report cards were recorded at France Travail (formerly Pôle Emploi) in 2023, we can read, Friday April 26, in an internal document revealed by the Politis site and which franceinfo obtained .

According to this document, precisely 15,906 reports of attacks were notified by employees last year through the 900 agencies in France. This figure includes behavioral attacks (2,325), physical attacks (143), verbal attacks (6,885), incivility (3,513) and EDIS (expressions of suicidal intent) from users (3,040).

143 physical attacks reported

For all these categories the figures are up 12% compared to 2022. In detail, the document notes in 2023 a 17% increase in incivility compared to the previous year (+82% since 2019), an increase 8% of reported verbal attacks compared to 2022 (+37% since 2019) and an increase of 17% in reported behavioral attacks compared again to the previous year (+10% compared to 2019).

Concerning physical attacks, their number remains stable (less than 1% of all reports) but the document specifies however that of the 143 physical attacks declared in 2023, 45 are proven physical attacks on an agent and occurred in an agency or nearby . Concerning EDIS, in 2023 more than 3,000 cases (3,040) of a user expressing suicidal intent were declared by agents. A figure that has been constantly increasing since 2019: in five years, it has tripled.

“The pressure is on job seekers”

Since the assassination of a councilor in Valence (Drôme) at the beginning of 2021, France Travail has encouraged its agents to report any incident. For Laurent Mérique, president of the Snap union, this is one of the reasons that explain these increases but it is not the only one: “The tensions which exist in particular in relation to the labor market, the pressure which is put on job seekers who are not sufficiently active in their searches and then the concerns also in relation to the past unemployment insurance reforms and announced, effectively lead the reception conditions of our users to be more verbally and physically aggressive.

For its part, France Travail mentions in the internal document a global context in society and relies on figures from the Ministry of the Interior : “In France, almost all indicators of recorded delinquency are increasing in 2022 compared to the previous year”. Contacted by franceinfo, the institution indicates that it will generalize video protection, as it had already announced a little less than three years ago. It also offers exercises for armed intrusions and provides training in dealing with suicide threats from job seekers.