“I made announcements. But this one is one of the worst. “A few weeks ago, this Parisian policeman had the heavy task of teaching a father that the body of his child had just been found, lifeless. “It was awful, awful”, repeats this commissioner, thirty years of police behind him. “We were paralyzed. The dad became mad with rage, and by reflex, he attacked him. “Families hate you because you announce this terrible news they associate you with. They can even be violent towards you, blame you for it, which you have to accept,” he concedes.
Precisely, how to announce the death of a victim to his relatives in a legal framework? How to find the right words? “It never goes well. It’s a terrible shock, ”says another commissioner from the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police, also very experienced. The latter tries to apply a few simple rules learned over time. “It must be done in the best possible conditions: face-to-face, especially not on the phone, with family support, he breathes. 20 minutes. We must try to ensure that people are surrounded as much as possible, to minimize the drama a little. Be as distant as possible from the facts, but don’t hide anything either. Use the right words, take the forms. »
“Death announcements are sometimes unsuitable”
His Parisian counterpart completes: “You must not lie to families, keep a certain distance and not burst into tears in their arms, which could happen. At the same time, one should not be completely detached and not announce it coldly. And stay after, not leave. This mission, he acknowledges, is in fact the responsibility of the investigation services, seized by the prosecution. “We are the interlocutors of the families, it is us that they come to see. “On the other hand, this commissioner believes” that a little more training would not harm “the workforce.
“Death announcements are sometimes inappropriate, made by people in the heat of the moment, focused on the investigation more than on the announcement,” observes a source at the Ministry of Justice. In order to reflect on this delicate subject, the Interministerial Delegation for Victim Assistance (DIAV) is organizing a colloquium this Friday at the premises of the Ministry of Justice. It will bring together representatives of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, the criminal affairs and pardons department, the federation of associations France Victims, the national resource and resilience center and the gendarmerie. “The goal is to better frame things”, to “value good practices” and to better coordinate between the various ministries concerned, we add in the entourage of the Keeper of the Seals.
Very sensitive to the subject, Eric Dupond-Moretti, will make the trip and deliver the opening speech. According to our information, he will announce on this occasion the publication of an interministerial circular relating to the announcement of deaths. It had been requested by the DIAV in a report delivered in August 2019 to Nicole Belloubet, then tenant of Place Vendôme. This fifty-page document presented 18 proposals and recommended in particular to “strengthen the training of professionals”.
“There is always progress to be made”
In the police, “the reception and care conditions for these families of victims are seen both in the initial training of peacekeepers only in continuing training for police officers with the qualification of judicial police officer. Police officers, regardless of their judicial capacity, are trained to take into account parents in distress because of the crime committed against their child. They must adopt a posture of support, explanation, psychological first aid, but above all orientation towards personnel who are able to provide real psychological and moral support in the clinical sense of the term”, indicates the General Management of the national police.
For their part, the student gendarmes follow a two-hour course intended to teach them to present the causes of death, to understand the emotional consequences of this announcement, and to avoid certain dangers by taking certain aspects into account beforehand. The short movie The announcement: 5 minutes to show the explosion of an accident on the surroundingsdirected in 2017 by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, is also shown to them.
On the other hand, “there is no internal directive to the police and the gendarmerie on the conditions for the realization of the mission of announcing deaths by the personnel”, regretted the DIAV in its report. Following its publication, “there were a number of things that were put in place,” said Olivia Mons, spokesperson for the France Victims Federation, a network of 130 associations. “There is always progress to be made insofar as, in reality, we are talking about a know-how which, with the best will in the world, cannot be decreed. So the issue of announcement-specific training is extremely important,” she concludes.