what does the figure of 94 women killed in 2023 announced by the Minister of Justice correspond to?

Eric Dupond-Moretti put forward this statistic on Tuesday in the columns of “Figaro”. Consolidated data from the Home Office will be released later this year.

“It’s very far from satisfactory.” This is how the Minister of Justice commented on the announcement of the figure for feminicides for the year 2023. total of 94 women were killed by their spouse or ex-spouse in 2023, relayed in Le Figaro Eric Dupond-Moretti, Tuesday January 2, the daily reporting a “drop of 20%”, after the 118 femicides recorded the previous year. This is, in reality, a provisional assessment, the Chancellery then corrected to franceinfo. We must therefore compare this figure of 94 feminicides with the previous provisional report for the year 2022, which stood, according to our information, at 113. That is to say a slightly smaller drop, of around 16%.

“While waiting for the official figures, Mr. Eric Dupond-Moretti takes the liberty of removing a few victims”reacted on thehe social network “To date, we have recorded in the press 102 marital feminicides in France in 2023”he specifies, affirming that “several investigations into suspicious deaths are still underway”.

To date, we have identified in the press 102 #feminicides marital relations in France in 2023. Several investigations into suspicious deaths are still underway. While waiting for the official figures, Sir @E_DupondM allows itself to remove a few victims. 🙄 🤡 #FakeNews https://t.co/uPlpWtXNKA

— Femicides By Companions or Ex (@feminicidesfr) January 2, 2024

Temporary lifting of the parquet floors

As for the association #NousToutes, which for its part lists all the women killed “because of their gender”it counted on December 31, 2023 “134 feminicides”of which “72%” in a frame “conjugal”. In its count, carried out from press articles, the association takes into account matricides (murder of a mother by her child).

1/It is December 31, 2023 and to date we have counted 134 feminicides (source @NousToutesOrg @inter_orga_IOF).
In 72% of cases, it is marital feminicide. In 74% of cases it took place at home pic.twitter.com/f1dz5ACLuD

— #NousToutes Paris Nord (@NTParisNord) December 31, 2023

So what does this figure of 94 put forward by the Minister of Justice correspond to? According to our information, this concerns reports from the prosecution concerning the murders of women by a spouse or ex-spouse, an aggravating circumstance which carries the penalty of 30 years’ imprisonment to life imprisonment. Even if this data covers the entire year 2023, from January to December, it may change. “There may be criminal reclassifications” in cases which are not yet considered as feminicides in a marital context (for example if a woman killed by a seemingly unknown man had a continuing relationship with him, or if the death of a married woman is not accidental) “but the delta is minimal”, observed from franceinfo a judicial source, arguing that the “trend is downward”.

Consolidated figures published mid-2024

The consolidated figures will be published in the summer, or even in September, as was the case in 2023. They come from the Ministry of the Interior, which has put its report online every year since 2006 on violent deaths within the couple, from data from the ddelegation to the victims of the general directorates of the national police and the national gendarmerie. TThree criminal qualifications are retained: murder, assassination and willful violence resulting in death without intention of causing it. The term “feminicide” does not appear in the French Penal Code. In 2022, this report showed 118 women killed in these circumstances, compared to 122 in 2021, 102 in 2020 and 146 in 2019.

The dropout in 2020 registers in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. But for Isabelle Rome, former Minister Delegate in charge of Gender Equality interviewed on franceinfo on Wednesday, this downward trend since 2019 and the Grenelle of domestic violence is “a sign of encouragement for all these proactive policies which have been implemented under the leadership of the President of the Republic”. And to cite the serious danger Telephone, past “300” has “4,000” today or again “the installation of the anti-reconciliation bracelet”.

“Forced suicides” not taken into account

For associations, institutional figures, even consolidated, however ignore part of reality. Not only do they only concern what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls “intimate femicide” (“committed by a current or former spouse or boyfriend”), on the four categories of “femicides” retained by the WHO. But also because certain deaths, such as the forced suicides of women, are not counted in the authorities’ toll. “According to an estimate that we made during the Grenelle on violence, there is an average of 200 women who commit suicide each year in France as a result of the violence they have suffered,” Yaël Mellul, a former lawyer and jurist specializing in domestic violence, explained to franceinfo.

Whatever the scope defined, the measures undertaken take time to be reflected in the figures, which must be considered with caution. “We know that fighting this scourge takes time, justified Eric Dupond-Moretti in Le Figaro, referring to Spain, considered a model in the fight against femicide. According to the Minister of Justice, “what we must conclude from the Spanish experience”, It is “that it took six to seven years of a major plan before seeing the figures drop drastically.”

If you are a victim of domestic violence or if you are worried about a member of your entourage, there is an anonymous listening service, 3919, available free of charge 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is also possible to send a reporting on instant messaging . Other information is also available on the site Service-public.fr .