these victims in “post-traumatic stress disorder” several years after a home-jacking

These burglaries in the presence of the victims are often publicized when they target celebrities. They are often very violent and traumatic.

The singer Vitaa, famous football players, influencers and even the presenter Bruno Guillon: many celebrities have been victims of “home-jacking” in recent weeks. These burglaries, committed in the presence of families, are often very violent and traumatic. But these celebrities are not the only ones to be targeted, anonymous people are regularly assaulted and burglarized in their homes.

Françoise is 76 years old and lives alone in a plush house near Amiens, in the Somme. In February 2020, two men attacked her at her home. An experience all the more shocking since the day before, this woman had just lost her husband. In the middle of the night, noises wake her up. She understands that burglars have just broken into her house: “The burglars ended up arriving in my room, saying ‘Police, police’ and targeting me. Then it was the money, the jewelry… They asked me for a safe and they took me to the safe. Of course they didn’t have the key. Afterwards, we give the key after a certain time, when it’s too loud…”

“They took everything”

The septuagenarian says she was assaulted. “Sometimes they hit my knees with their crowbars, they hit me on the head and I lost consciousness, she says. They took everything that was in the trunk.”

“And above all what hurts the most: they stole my husband’s will, his poems, little jewels that have passed through life, things that your parents, your great-grandparents, left you.”

Françoise, victim of a homejacking

at franceinfo

Françoise never found a single item stolen that night. The two thieves were arrested and sentenced to between 18 months and 6 years in prison.

Her lawyer, Maître Christine Hamel, testifies to her client’s trauma: “Today, we have a serious state of post-traumatic stress. There is memory loss, neuropsychological disorders, language disorders, it is someone who is searching for words because she is always disturbed. She can no longer stand the dark, she can no longer stand being locked up. In the same way, very often there is post-traumatic stress of agoraphobia: these are people who are afraid of everything. She cannot is more able to go out.”

A trauma that pushes some victims to “bunkerize” themselves

This is how Coraline Balligand reacted, an influencer who was the victim of a housejacking at her home two years ago in Hauts-de-Seine. While she was filming a video for her subscribers, two men who claimed to be her neighbors assaulted her and threatened to kill her to steal her luxury watch. These two thieves were never found.

Since then, Coraline Balligand has lived with fear in her stomach: “I equipped my apartment with video surveillance cameras with alarms everywhere. I no longer have a name on the mailbox. I no longer have packages delivered to my home. It could have happened to anyone, I tell myself that I opened the door to a stranger. When it’s at home, when you set foot in your house every day and see the scene again, it’s complicated.” Today a young mother, Coraline Balligand says she had a miscarriage after the home-jacking of which she was a victim.

The number of home-jackings stable over five years

In 2023, there is indeed an upward trend over one year: 475 home-jackings in 2022, including 337 in Paris and the inner suburbs, compared to 469 over the first 11 months of 2023. But for five years, the figures remain relatively stable. The phenomenon is essentially urban and especially marked in Île-de-France. The investigators distinguish two profiles: the more traditional one of specialized and experienced teams, and a profile that has become the most common, that of younger teams.

Guillaume Maniglier is divisional commissioner, head of the national brigade for the repression of banditry and trafficking, deputy to the head of OCLCO (central office for the fight against organized crime): “Most are around twenty years old, some are even minors. They have more disparate weapons. They are very mobile in a given area and they are very active with the commission of a succession of acts until their arrest. “

These burglars are increasingly finding their victims on social networks, such as on Instagram, specifies the commissioner: “There are different means such as word of mouth, but there is undeniably a social media phenomenon, especially when the targets are celebrities.” Some even specialize in this type of tracking, before locating victims always on the internet.