It is “a subject that has been completely abandoned” by Emmanuel Macron deplores the president of the Republicans, Christian Jacob. He fired red balls at the security record of the President of the Republic: “We are at an increase, under Emmanuel Macron, of more than 40% of attempted homicides, we are at a 30% increase in violence against people”, he said on LCI. Rather true figures: we found in the statistics of the Ministry of the Interior. That said, you have to be very careful about their interpretation.
We start with violence against people. They would be up more than 30%, according to the Republican boss. This is rather true if we look at the figures from the Ministry of the Interior concerning “intentional blows and injuries to people over 15”. In 2017, we went from 233,000 incidents reported to just over 306,000 in 2021, which is, in fact, an increase of just over 30%.
This sharp rise is mainly driven by domestic violence. The number of reports jumped by more than 50% compared to the start of the five-year term. According to the statistical service of the Ministry of the Interior, these increases, which have been very high for three years, can be explained by two main reasons: the victims are much more daring to express themselves than before and, according to the ministry, they are better received when they come to lodge a complaint.
Concerning attempted homicides, Christian Jacob exaggerates a little when he speaks of “40%“. But we are actually not that far, rather around 30%, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, which counts just under 2,600 attempts in 2017 against just over 3,400 in 2021.
Except that this indicator is fragile because during an investigation the police can first think of an attempted homicide and then abandon this qualification. According to a specialist in security statistics, it is better to focus on homicides, whose data are more reliable. And if we look at this indicator, there is indeed an increase, but not at all in the same proportions since the increase is around 10% over five years.