On Monday, the government presented a plan to combat mistreatment of the elderly and people with disabilities. The priority is to facilitate the reporting of facts, which victims and witnesses too rarely dare to denounce.
Before crossing the threshold of the gendarmerie, Linda hesitated for a long time. “If I denounce my brother, my mother will no longer speak to me. And how will he react? He is violent.” It is the story of a moral dilemma, somewhere in Haute-Savoie, involving an 88-year-old widow, her 53-year-old daughter and her 56-year-old son. As a setting, the octogenarian’s house, where the eldest took refuge after escaping from a detoxification center.
Linda accuses her brother, “heavy drug addict”to subject “a hell” to their mother. “He insults her, demeans her, extorts her”, says the girl. She mentions psychological violence, “maybe physical”. “He no longer wants the housekeeper to come in, the meals from the porter service are left at the door and I no longer dare go alone”, she lists. Over the years, the closed doors became more oppressive, according to his account. The old lady, caught between love for her son and her own well-being, would be “stuck” and outdated.
In mid-March, Linda made up her mind. She appeared before the police. “They told me I couldn’t file a complaint for my mothershe laments. They just accepted a complaint against my brother for insult, because he regularly insults me, but my case was immediately closed.” She blames the blow. “Since I’ve been warning everyone and nothing has happened… It’s frustrating.”
Make reporting easier
In France, mistreatment of the most vulnerable adults remains a deep taboo. The very concept of mistreatment only appeared in the law in 2022, defined as any “gesture, word, action or lack of action” harming a vulnerable person in the context of a “relationship of trust, dependence, care or support”. Often committed out of sight, acts against elderly or disabled people are rarely denounced by the victims. They, not always able to express themselves, fear not being taken seriously or suffering reprisals. Witnesses, when there are any, also tend to remain silent.
How to get out of this vicious circle? The government is preparing to present, Monday March 25, a national strategy to combat abuse. The Minister Delegate in charge of the Elderly and People with Disabilities, Fadila Khattabi, reveals the content exclusively to franceinfo. Modeled on the inspections launched in all nursing homes after the Orpea scandal, “we are launching a new control plan which will ultimately concern all social and medico-social establishments welcoming people in situations of disability,” she announces.
This strategy also includes progress in the “Aging Well” bill, which must be definitively adopted by the Senate on Wednesday. “We are going to create, in each department, units to centralize and better respond to reports of mistreatment”welcomes Renaissance MP Annie Vidal, rapporteur of the text, who calls for “breaking the omerta”. The future law is, however, considered insufficient by parliamentarians from all sides, including Annie Vidal, who expect from the executive a more ambitious bill on old age.
The home, a closed door conducive to abuse
Distraught by her mother’s situation, Linda knocked on several doors. At the beginning of March, she dialed 3977, a national call number launched by the public authorities in 2008. One of the 14 professional listeners collected her testimony and directed her to a specialized association in her department. Like Linda, some 7,000 people were supported by 3977 last year. The majority of calls came from relatives of the victim, according to internal data. In less than a quarter of cases, it was the main person concerned, generally a woman, who picked up the telephone.
“The situations described to us, in 65% of cases, take place at home”underlines Bruno Dessailly, head of the Federation 3977 listening platform against mistreatment of elderly people and adults with disabilities. “Very often, the person involved is another member of the family. This ranges from neglect, not necessarily conscious, to violence, which can be encouraged by addictions or psychological problems.”
“Mistreatment says a lot about the state of our society: people experiencing difficulties in their daily lives sometimes find themselves mistreating their loved ones.”
Bruno Dessailly, responsible for the 3977 listening platformat franceinfo
There are multiple forms of abuse reported at home to 3977. The most recurrent is of a psychological nature, with disrespectful remarks, infantilization or blaming of the person. Then comes physical abuse (brutal acts, confinement, forced feeding, etc.) and financial abuse (theft, abusive power of attorney, anticipated inheritance, etc.). In institutions, there is more question of deprivation of care, abuse of neuroleptics or even poor handling, “all often linked to a lack of trained personnel”according to the federation.
“I was abused myself.”
In the call center, the phone rings again. “3977 hello?” At the other end of the phone, Marie-Thérèse is worried about her 96-year-old mother, hospitalized in Essonne after a fall. “My mom has intestinal problems and needs her diaper changed regularly, she describes. But here, we change her at lunchtime and we tell her: ‘You stay like that until tonight’. I call it abuse. She’s not eating anymore and I don’t know what state I’m going to find her in.”
The listener, Kankoun, records the story – always in the conditional, for lack of evidence. At 47, this former caregiver knows these situations only too well. “I myself was abusedshe admits. I worked in an understaffed geriatrics department, where a certain pace had to be respected. It became mechanical, dehumanized. One day, a resident woke up in a panic because I had started washing him without warning him. That’s when I realized. The next day I left the service.”
In his telephone box, Kankoun feels useful. Each file immediately goes to the departmental council or to a local association overseen by the platform. Federation 3977 relies on a territorial network of several hundred volunteers, gathered within Alma centers (Allô mistreatment of elderly and disabled adults) throughout almost the entire country, which are not always very active. It is up to them to recontact the callers, to qualify the facts – which do not always amount to mistreatment – and to advise them on the steps to take.
Since #MeToo, “people dare to call more”
In the capital, the Alma Paris center says it has noted a continuous increase in requests since 2018, with a doubling of the number of files created. “Thanks to #MeToo, people dare to call us more”rejoices its president, Claude Lepresle.
“Speech is freed throughout society, including among the most vulnerable.”
Claude Lepresle, president of Allô maltreatment Parisat franceinfo
The association manager, however, mentions persistent obstacles. “We are in a society where accusation becomes easier, but not yet against his own son or daughter”, he explains. In 2022, half of those accused during a first call to Alma Paris were professionals, in particular home helpers, targets of criticism for lack of respect, abrupt gestures or repeated delays. “But when the call targets a family member, the person rarely agrees to file a complaint”deplores Claude Lepresle.
Intra-family abuse is all the more difficult to denounce as the influence is strong. “Almost all abuse occurs behind closed doors, in the absence of witnesses”underlines the volunteer. “At home, as long as you do not have a nurse or caregiver visit, the field is free. All our work consists of breaking these closed doors. Sometimes all it takes is a little thing. The act for having called us can make us a protective third party: ‘I called Alma, so now you be careful’.”
“Undervalued” sexual violence
Will the announcement of a government strategy help free speech? “We don’t yet have headliners like Emmanuelle Béart or Judith Godrèche, nor a Brigitte Macron to carry the cause, but something has started”, observes a source associated with the development of the text. Last year, a Crédoc survey revealed that the issue of mistreatment of vulnerable people worries 70% of French people, more than the risk of aggression in the street. The research organization sees this as a sign of more “high sensitivity” Population, “less tolerant of attacks on people” since the Covid-19 crisis and the Orpea scandal in nursing homes.
The “Forbidden Zone” documentary dedicated to “scandals” and to “state failures” in the disability sector, broadcast Sunday evening on M6, could act as an accelerator. The parents of a 27-year-old autistic young man accused a medical foster home of “mistreatment” towards their son, who was allegedly the victim of physical violence, malnutrition and a possible drug overdose which almost cost him his life. “In the world of disability, it is so much easier to be malicious (…) because there is no return: our children do not come and tell us what they are going through”laments the mother.
“You will never see a person with Alzheimer’s call 3977 to accuse their spouse or paramedic,” supports a source close to the executive, for whom “the phenomenon of sexual violence against vulnerable people remains largely underestimated”. At the beginning of March, Radio France’s investigation unit highlighted more than 150 cases of sexual violence committed by taxi drivers, bus drivers or ambulance drivers against people in their care. Little by little, the iceberg of abuse emerges from the fog. We can still only see the emerging part.