The Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti wanted to start the year 2024 with good news: in an interview with Figaro, it reveals that the number of feminicides counted in 2023 has dropped drastically. There would have been 94 last year compared to 118 in 2022. A drop of 20%. “It is very far from being satisfactory,” nevertheless said the Minister of Justice in the conservative newspaper. We know that fighting this scourge takes time. This is what we must conclude from the Spanish experience, which shows us that it took six to seven years of a major plan before seeing the figures drop drastically. »
Spain is indeed often cited as a model of a country which has tackled the subject of femicide and violence against women in general head-on, by putting money on the table. In France, feminist associations are still demanding this money. Some of these associations also disagree with the minister’s figure. The collective “Feminicide by partner or ex” announces on Twitter that it has accounted for 102 feminicides in 2023 in the press and that in addition “several investigations into suspicious deaths are still underway”. Activists wonder if Éric Dupond-Moretti has not “forgotten” to take into account elderly and sick women “suicided” by their husbands”.
Measures that work according to the minister
Worse, on the Twitter account of #NousToutes, the count of feminicides in 2024 stopped at 134 with, at Christmas, the quintuple murder of Meaux, where a woman and her four children were killed by her partner. #NousToutes nevertheless assumes a count of feminicides which all concern women killed because of their gender, not only by their partner or ex-partner.
The Minister of Justice nevertheless judges in Le Figaro that the drop recorded by official figures is the result of government policy: “After the extension of serious danger telephones and anti-reconciliation bracelets, we can hope that our fight will be even more effective. » The newspaper recalls that 1,850 victims have benefited from this type of protection so far. Finally, Éric Dupond-Moretti insists on the shortening of the deadlines for obtaining a protection order from the courts (6 days on average compared to 42 in 2017) and on their number, much greater than seven years ago: almost 40,000 compared to 11,300 in 2017.