In the early hours of Sunday, police near Annecy, in east-central France, pulled over a motorist returning from a holiday in Italy, with his two young children in the back seat. In a search of the vehicle, the officers found the corpse of the man’s wife hidden in a suitcase in the boot.
French feminist collective group “Féminicides par compagnon ou ex”, whose volunteer members trawl the media for reports on domestic violence, have recorded 92 cases this year already of women murdered in France at the hands of their husbands, former spouses or companions. That compares with interior ministry figures which established that 121 women died in 2018 in crimes of domestic violence.
The once largely taboo issue of domestic violence has become the subject of increasing media and political attention. In early September, a summit is to be held under the auspices of France’s gender equality minister Marlène Schiappa to study more effective mechanisms to tackle the problem and, in the words of Schiappa, “to question all of society”.
But a number of campaigners against domestic violence have voiced scepticism over the means that the government is prepared to provide. “All that is too theoretical, we were waiting for more concrete measures,” commented Céline Piques, spokeswoman for feminist group Osez le féminisme, in an interview with French daily La Croix. Piques described the legal procedure required of victims who attempt to escape domestic violence as a “combat course”.
Judicial decisions towards women who complain of domestic violence can lead to them being placed in situations of insecurity and danger. In formal complaints she filed in 2017 and again in 2019, Céline – whose full name is withheld here – accused the man who used to be her partner, the father of her two children, of moral harassment, psychological violence and threatening behaviour.
For 12 months, beginning in the summer of 2017, she was given a special mobile phone (called a téléphone grave danger, or TGD) issued by the justice authorities to victims of rape or domestic violence who are considered to be in danger of further attack. The mobile has a dedicated button to press to alert the police in case of an emergency.
Under a protection order she was given, her ex-partner, who has refuted all the accusations made against him, was told not to approach Céline or their children, and her new address was kept secret from him.
But last month a magistrate with a family court in north-east France, where Céline lives, removed the protection order and gave her former partner both the right to visit the children and also to receive them.
In 2017, in the first legal decision taken in the case, a family court judge ruled that the formal complaint, statements and medical certificates submitted by Céline made probable “the existence of violence, at the very least verbal, and the danger that constitutes for madam and her children”. But in the decision taken last month, that threat was no longer recognised. While she has obtained exclusive parental authority over the children, she was refused permission she had received until then to use her lawyer’s office address, and not her private one, in documents relating to the case.
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“My lawyer and I pointed out that I had been issued with a TGD phone,” said Céline, who is in her 30s. “The judge said ‘What’s that?’, but I think she knew very well what it was. Normally, her intention is to protect us. There, she has put us in danger. From now on, the Sword of Damocles is above our heads.”
According to Céline, her former partner appeared in front of her home at the end of July, although his visiting rights were to take effect only after the beginning of august. “I heard my dog barking,” she said. “A car was parked in front of my house, then I saw the head of my ex-partner. I was shocked.” Céline recounted that he then tried in vain to open the gated entrance which was secured with a padlock, after which he got back in his car, blocking the road while sounding the horn. “My neighbour even called me,” recounted Céline. “At the police station they refused to take a complaint from me. I was told that I could only give a statement about disruption.”
However, under article 15-3 of the French criminal law code, the police cannot refuse to take a formal complaint in such circumstances. Céline raised this in a letter she sent at the end of July to the public prosecutor’s office in the town of Béthune, which has jurisdiction in her case, when she warned that “we are in danger, me and my two children”. She received no response.
The complaints made by Céline against her former partner, beginning in 2017, are still being studied. In a supplementary complaint she made in 2018, Céline detailed allegations of violent behaviour by him against her and one of her children. In a new complaint lodged this year, she detailed accusations of intimidation.
Contacted by Mediapart, the public prosecution services said they were waiting to receive the results of a preliminary inquiry into Céline’s 2017 complaint for moral harassment to decide what action, if any, they would take.
In May, Céline wrote to the office of France’s junior minister for gender parity, Marlène Schiappa. “Must I be among the quota of women killed by their former partners before I’m at last listened too?” she asked in the letter. “My former partner is the type of person who walks around with a hunting knife on him, with an axe in his car […] Every day I fear for our lives. Madame Schiappa, can you help make things progress, not just for me but for all women who are in danger?”
Schiappa’s secretariat subsequently informed Céline that they had passed the information she submitted on to her local prefect – the administrative representative of the government.
Contacted by Mediapart, Schiappa’s office said: “The executive is not authorised to comment on ongoing [judicial] cases. However, Marlène Schiappa has passed the dossier on to the justice and interior ministries, as she does each time the lives of women are at stake.”
Asked about its position on whether related criminal and civil cases should be better coordinated, the ministry said “the different jurisdictions must better and more rapidly share elements in cases to allow for better appreciations”, adding that the issue will be among others discussed at the round-table summit on domestic violence, bringing together government officials and associations, called by Schiappa for early September.
Céline also alerted the justice ministry to her case, and she was in turn advised to contact her local “bureau d’aide aux victims”, the victim support and advice offices run by associations and which are present in every French courthouse. Contacted by Mediapart, the justice ministry declined to comment on Céline’s case.
Since several years now, France’s Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes (FNSF), an umbrella organisation for women’s support groups, and notably active on the issue of domestic violence, has demanded that both the home address of women plaintiffs and that of the school attended by their children be guaranteed secrecy by law.
“Today, hiding one’s address is possible only through a protection order, and many women, after separating, are assaulted in front of school establishments or during the swapping over of child care,” said FNSF president Françoise Brié, who also wants to see better training for family court judges. “Domestic violence must be regarded as a continuum after separation, which exacerbates it. It is not conceivable to ask a victim to reach an agreement over the children with their aggressor. There must be neutral places [editor’s note: where parents make contact with their children in the presence of a third party, such as social workers] and evaluations if we want to protect women and to prevent some being murdered when children are handed over.” She also calls for a “reinforced monitoring” of the threat posed by a perpetrator of domestic violence in cases where the victim has been issued with a TGD emergency mobile phone.
All of which, had they been in place, are measures that could have avoided Céline ending up in the perilous situation she is now in. She has decided to appeal the family court judge’s decision to lift the secrecy of her address, but meanwhile she lives in fear. “We hide, I’ve already moved house three times in two years,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
As this report was prepared for publication by Mediapart in its original French version earlier this month, Céline’s former partner was finally summoned for questioning, while Céline and one of her children were also asked to give statements – two years after she first filed a complaint.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse