French historian Christelle Taraud: femicides were ‘forged at the dawn of humanity’
This week, the French justice minister announced provisional figures that suggest the number of femicides – the killing of a female because of her gender – had fallen year-on-year in 2023 by around 20 percent, a claim which is hotly contested by feminist associations. For the recorded numbers of femicides and crimes of domestic violence against women in France have remained on average largely stable over recent years, despite the increased attention given to the problem. In this interview with Mediapart, the historian Christelle Taraud gives her view on why femicides continue at an appalling level, and why women often suffer greater violence in the wake of high-profile feminist mobilisations.
PublishedPublished in France in October 2023 by Les éditions du Seuil, #MeToo, le combat continueis a collective work by Mediapart journalists and contributors that charts the feminist revolution across the globe that followed the eruption in 2017 of the MeToo hashtag and movement. Over the more than six years since, debates, controversies and new awareness of the issues behind that movement have shaken many societies and to different degrees.
