These are figures that can be worrying: complaints for homophobic and transphobic acts have increased by more than 30% in Paris and the inner suburbs for the first 11 months of 2022, compared to this same period in 2021, according to the police headquarters of Paris. An inflation which is partly explained by a “MeToo effect” and an improvement in the handling of complaints, according to the LGBT liaison officer at the Paris police headquarters, Mickaël Bucheron.
In detail, 573 homophobic or transphobic complaints were filed during the first eleven months of 2022, compared to 439 last year at the same period. “There is a MeToo effect that has impacted the LGBT population, which has led many people to file complaints. Many people say that they no longer want to let it go, that they no longer want homophobia to reign, and this discourse contributes to the increase in complaints, ”comments Mickaël Bucheron.
An increase difficult to quantify
The LGBT liaison officer also notes an “improvement in the services” even if he admits that there may be “shortcomings here or there”, an improvement which contributes to this increase in complaints, with colleagues “increasingly more sensitized,” he says. But have homophobic and transphobic acts in themselves really increased? Hard to say, according to Mickaël Bucheron.
“The increase in complaints is not necessarily to be correlated only to an increase in violence but also to a fed up with this violence and a need to denounce it”, abounds for her part Lucile Jomat, spokesperson for SOS homophobia.
A large number of complaints in Paris
The situations are however different according to the departments. The increase is greatest in Val-de-Marne, with an 89% increase in complaints, the total number rising from 28 to 53. Complaints increased by 53% in Hauts-de-Seine (55 complaints from January to November 2022) and 15% in Seine-Saint-Denis, which has a total of 106 complaints.
It is in Paris that the total number is the highest, with 359 complaints, an increase of 27% compared to 2022 (283 complaints over the first eleven months of the year). “LGBT life is more intense in Paris, but it can also be more taboo in certain departments, which may explain the gap compared to Paris. Physical attacks may take place more in a private environment in the suburbs than in Paris, which does not facilitate the filing of a complaint, ”comments Mickaël Bucheron. The national figures, meanwhile, will be known at the end of January.
Hear and listen
The role of the liaison officer is precisely to help the victims get through this if they so wish, either by providing them with information or by taking their complaint directly if they have encountered difficulties in their local police station. “It can reassure certain audiences to talk to someone who knows the vocabulary and the issues,” explains Mickaël Bucheron.
The man also directs the victims to various partners, such as social workers or associations, in order to help them with possible psychological care, housing, or other needs. Sympathetic, he agrees to give his direct contact details: “That your readers do not hesitate to contact me so that we can recover the blow if they have been badly received by our services. The important thing is that the victims have the feeling of being heard and listened to. »
- To contact the LGBT liaison officer directly, you can call him on his professional mobile at 06 37 98 17 47 or write to him at [email protected].