“If you try anything, we won’t believe you.” This sentence, Dorothée heard it every day, between 2015 and 2020. This 41-year-old woman, an engineer, tells franceinfo that she endured “strokes”, “jostling”, “humiliations” and “psychological violence on a daily basis” from her ex-spouse. “The grip is a prison. You can only suffer, even more so when it’s a police officer.” Because for Dorothée, the profession of her former companion represented a threat and additional difficulties. to start the process: “He told me that I was going to ruin his career. He put forward very good service notes. He repeated to me that he was, supposedly, a domestic violence referent.”
From the beginning of 2019, Dorothée tries to go to police stations. But she claims to come up against officials who defend their colleague. Until the day where she implores a police officer, who takes the time to listen to her and registers, on August 25, 2020, a complaint for “harassment, rape and violence against a spouse”. The person concerned is placed in police custody and then placed under judicial review. He denies the facts and affirms that the sexual relationship denounced as forced by Dorothée was consented.
Her story, Dorothée could tell it in a book, as Alizé Bernard did. Vvictim of violence by her ex-spouse, a former mobile policeman and reservist, this woman details, with journalist Sophie Boutboul, in Silence, we knock (ed. Grasset), published in November 2019, his sufferings and his Way of the Cross in the face of the institution’s denial. Today, Alizé Bernard is regularly contacted by companions of gendarmes and police officers who are victims of violence. “They need help and have not been able to file a complaint”she explains to franceinfo.
How many women are affected? In her investigation into domestic violence suffered by women of police officers and gendarmes, Sophie Boutboul traces twenty stories, but specifies that these testimonies are not exhaustive. The journalist also reveals figures collected by the 3919. Thus, in 2016, 115 police or military spouses dialed this listening number for abused women, out of the 1,210 files mentioning the profession of the alleged perpetrator. Figures to be taken with caution, because this mention is not always filled in. Despite everything, they make it possible to affirm that these cases are far from being isolated. Since the publication of Silence, we knock, Sophie Boutboul investigated new cases. Which regularly make the headlines in the miscellaneous news section of the regional press.
So to know “the extent of the phenomenon”, the collective Abandon de famille as well as elected officials, such as the centrist senator Annick Billon, demanded in a petition, in July 2021, “a census of police officers and gendarmes who are violent towards women and/or children”. In an attempt to free speech, Abandon de famille also launches the hashtag #MeTooFdO on social networks. Then a form, which made it possible to collect around twenty testimonies in one year, lists Stéphanie Lamy, member of the collective. “There was a real demand, but they were afraid to speak”she summarizes.
Are you a female victim of a police officer or gendarme (ex/spouse, colleague, complainant)?
Testify anonymously here ⤵️https://t.co/VciJXtWRhWPlease specify if your #AggressorAu17 is still in office (and where?) ⤵️#MeTooFdO pic.twitter.com/htFZ5DfhQE
— Fight collective vs. economic violence (@abandon2famille) October 13, 2021
For Sophie *, it was the feminicide of Amanda Glain, strangled by her companion, Arnaud Bonnefoy, on January 28, 2022 in Paris, which pushed her to speak and go to the police station. Learning that this man was a police officer echoed his own story. Previously, she was afraid to file a complaint against his ex-companion, also a police officer. The latter was tried on August 30 and will be fixed on his fate on December 6. In the meantime, no ban on his service weapon has been issued. What Pauline Rongier, Sophie’s lawyer denounces:
“The protective measures must be reinforced when he is a policeman, and not moderated because he is a policeman.”
Pauline Rongier, lawyerat franceinfo
“When police and gendarmes are violent with their wives, the danger is multiplied because they are armed”, abounds his colleague Nathalie Tomasini, Dorothée’s lawyer. The latter remembers very well the day when her ex-spouse brought her service weapon home. “He asked me to handle her. It was intimidation, as if to say: ‘You see there is a weapon in the house, do not do anything that could be compromising for you'”loose Dorothy, her throat knotted. “Like all authors, they feel in full power. But because they represent the public force, they have a position of dominance, especially since there is an internal omerta”believes Nathalie Tomasini, specializing in cases of domestic violence.
In fact, in the ranks of the police and the gendarmerie, the subject is sensitive. Although bound by the duty of reserve, six members of the police agreed to talk about it, over the fortnight that we contacted. “Either the hierarchy takes care of it and brings up the case to serve as an example, or it is a little hidden to avoid causing a scandal”says a young policeman. “It’s delicate, as can be any serious offense committed by a police officer or a gendarme”exposes a police officer in the Paris region. “It’s not a taboo, but like everywhere, we often don’t know how it goes at home…” add another. “Professional life and personal life are compartmentalised”sums up a police officer.
This perception is mentioned in black and white in the latest police report: domestic violence cases are considered a “private litigation not directly related to the exercise of his functions, except threat with service weapon, for example, accompanying this violence”. Thus, the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) is not, most of the time, “competent to deal” these files. In 2021, she was seized “at the margin” of 25 surveys “relating to violence in the private sphere but which may have a link with the functions or the quality of a police officer”.
“Knowing the experience of our employees is a real difficulty. However, this intrusion into privacy can be useful”points out Jean-Paul Mégret, national secretary of the Independent Union of Police Commissioners (SICP).
“When guys commit serious lapses, they don’t brag about it.”
Jean-Paul Mégret, national secretary of the SICPat franceinfo
Since moments of dialogue have been established, in particular within the framework of the program against suicides in the police, he manages to exchange more with the officials under his responsibility. “It’s the manager’s job to know what’s going on at home”, he says. And to insist: “It’s a problem that is taken head on.” Training, system to improve the collection of complaints, social workers in the police station and family protection houses… The measures taken within the framework of the policy to fight against domestic violence are developing.
“What changes today is that these cases are denounced. At a certain time, an author would not have been sanctioned”, recognizes Cyril Jeannin, regional secretary of the SGP Police Unit union in the South West. For her part, Stéphanie*, a senior police officer, remembers a colleague implicated in a domestic violence case a few years ago, “remained in post while it passes in court”.
The shock caused by Chahinez Daoud’s feminicide changed the situation. The death of this woman, immolated by fire in the street by her ex-husband, on May 4, 2021, near Bordeaux, highlighted domestic violence within law enforcement. Because his file was badly managed by the policeman who had registered his complaint two months before his death. However, he himself had just been sentenced for “habitual violence against his ex-spouse”. He was discharged from the force in January and four other officers, including two commissioners, received sanctions.
In addition, Gérald Darmanin issued an instruction on August 2, 2021, so that “Any police officer or gendarme who has been definitively convicted of domestic violence is no longer in contact with the public pending the decision of the disciplinary council”. A little over a year later, the Ministry of the Interior told franceinfo that 66 gendarmes and 92 police officers, including 51 from the Paris police headquarters, “definitively sentenced for domestic violence”have been “removed from contact with the public”. The minister’s entourage underlines the desire to go further, thanks to the Orientation and Programming Law of the Ministry of the Interior (Lopmi). In the bill, it is clearly stated that they must be excluded “definitely from the ministry”.
In the meantime, as soon as a member of law enforcement is “identified” as a perpetrator of intra-family violence, he can be suspended from his duties, a precautionary, non-disciplinary measure. They also have the obligation to report to their hierarchy any questioning or condemnation. An administrative investigation is then opened, after which a decision to go to the disciplinary council can be decided and sanctions proposed. On the police side, the director general of the national police (DGPN), or the Minister of the Interior if he is a commissioner, have the last word.
In most cases, administrative investigations evolve according to justice. However, judicial time is often longer. Thus, the administrative inquiry concerning a policeman from Agen, sentenced on June 28 to eight months in prison suspended and prohibited from carrying a weapon, for domestic violence and against his child, is still in progress, according to his lawyer. This police officer appealed his conviction. He has been on sick leave since the end of his police custody in January.
Dorothée’s spouse is also the subject of an administrative investigation. While the case is in the hands of an investigating judge, who will decide, at the end of his investigation, to send the policeman to a criminal court, an assize court, or to close the case. Since a protection order in February 2021, Dorothée has benefited from psychological monitoring and a serious danger telephone line, which makes it possible to quickly alert an assistance service. In handing him over, the prosecutor said to him: “Fear must change sides.” For Dorothée, there is still a long way to go before achieving this.
*Names have been changed.
If you need help, if you are facing violence in your relationship, there is a free, anonymous reporting portal available 24 hours a day. Arretonslesviolences.gouv.fr. The Violences Femmes Info hotline can also be reached 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 3919.