He wanted to “fake a suicide”, “make the trigger sound” to his wife to dissuade her from setting sail after yet another argument. This is how Kendji Girac justified to investigators the gunshot wound that he inflicted on himself. “I wanted her to tell me to stop and not to leave,” declared the singer, in the words of the public prosecutor of Mont-de-Marsan, last Thursday. If the investigations continue, in particular the time to recover the latest expert opinions, the investigation is moving towards a classification without further action.
Because whether it is a “simulated suicide that goes wrong or a real suicide”, the facts are not criminally reprehensible, the magistrate clarified. If the courts do not investigate the reasons for committing a suicidal act, feigning suicide to restrain one’s partner may, however, be criminally reprehensible.
Suicide blackmail is part of the psychological violence detailed by the danger assessment grid, distributed to law enforcement. During a hearing, the police or gendarmes are therefore invited to ask if “the partner has ever expressed thoughts or threats of suicide”. “Telling someone that you are going to commit suicide, repeating it very regularly, is a way of making the victim feel guilty,” insists Migueline Rosset, specialist in family law. There are sometimes areas of depression but most often it is a form of manipulation to achieve one’s ends. It’s a way of saying “don’t leave me otherwise you’ll have it on your conscience”. »
“The more our relationship struggled, the more he repeated it”
It took Camille* a long time to realize that her ex-husband’s “crises”, as she modestly calls them, were in reality a form of blackmail. “He told me that he would screw himself up if I left him, that he would never stand it,” confides the forty-year-old. The more our relationship struggled, the more he repeated it. It wasn’t even necessarily in the context of an argument. » In the first months, she puts this down to discomfort linked to the inevitable end of their family life and professional problems. But the threatening words intensify. Once, he grabbed a knife and pretended to cut his throat while staring at her.
The climate becomes deleterious. According to the story of this mother of three children, insults, denigrating or threatening remarks are almost daily. But the fear that her husband will harm himself pushes Camille to procrastinate. “All I wanted to do was take the kids and leave, but every time I said to myself: ‘What if he really does it?’ I was afraid that he would leave a letter for the children saying I committed suicide because of your mother…” It was thanks to a television report that she realized that what she was experiencing is a form of psychological violence. A “click”, according to her. A few months later, she ended up contacting a lawyer and filing for divorce.
“They no longer have control over their victim”
“This type of blackmail is generally linked to the breakup, when the perpetrators understand that they have reached a point of no return and that they no longer have control over their victim. They then go through manipulation,” analyzes lawyer Anne-Claire Lejeune. And the criminal lawyer remembers this case in which a man wrote to his ex-partner that he was on the train tracks. The investigation – and in particular the geolocation of his phone – finally established that he was at home.
According to a vast investigation by the Ministry of the Interior published in 2022, 32% of women victims of psychological violence within their relationship say they have been “blackmailed into harming themselves in the event of a breakup”. A figure which drops to 23% for men. “Blackmail is a form of domestic violence,” insists Me Migueline Rosset. Someone who is not violent is not going to threaten suicide to keep their partner. »
Julie* also experienced this insidious violence a few months ago. “It was the associations that allowed me to understand that through these threats of suicide, it was me who was being targeted,” summarizes this mother. The blackmail began when she left the family home with her children after yet another episode of violence. First there were phone calls and text messages in which her ex-husband told her he had left a farewell letter for her. And then there was this day when, on her way to see her lawyer to finalize the procedure, she came face to face with him in the metro. “I don’t know if he followed me or if it was really a coincidence, but it was neither his line nor mine and it was the middle of the afternoon,” insists -She.
” This is for you “
Immediately, she feels fear rising. Her former partner follows her, stays extremely close to her. As soon as they leave the station, he takes off his backpack, yells “this is for you” then runs off into the middle of the road. “He was hit by a first car, then he got up and ran again on a main Parisian avenue,” she summarizes. Fortunately, motorists had witnessed his first attempt and a witness managed to quickly subdue him. “It was incredibly violent, witnessing this scene, the fact that he held me responsible for it… I told myself that he was really capable of committing suicide,” she insists.
If this did not dissuade Julie from following through with her approach – her ex-husband now no longer has the right to approach her and their children – this blackmail often places the victims in a dilemma. insoluble. Recently, Me Anne-Claire Lejeune defended a teenager manipulated by her boyfriend, also a minor. “She wanted to separate from him but for six-eight months, he blackmailed her whenever she tried to leave, he made her feel guilty while he raped her. It was really a double punishment. She isolated herself and began to develop serious physical and psychological problems. » Finally, the teenager’s mother managed to get her out of this grip. And in this case, the threats of suicide were considered by the juvenile court to be a form of coercion.
* First names have been changed at the request of interested parties