Is the fight against domestic violence really still this presidency's great cause? The current plight of abused women who are seeking places of refuge would suggest otherwise. The plight, for example, of one 20-year-old woman who has been the victim of violence on several occasions. First of all she was beaten by her brother-in-law who struck her when she tried to protect her sister. Later her father shoved her down the stairs, angry that she had intervened when he was hitting his own partner.
At the start of September, with nowhere to live, this young woman called an association in charge of finding safe accommodation for women who are victims of violence. She asked to be given a place of refuge. But the helpline told her that, unfortunately, they could do nothing for her. A directive from the state, which had been issued just hours earlier, instructed the associations running the 115 social emergency helpline in the country's départements or counties to reduce the number of hotel beds they could offer to the homeless or to women victims of violence. There is already a major shortage of places in emergency refuges to which, in theory, the victims move after staying in an hotel. “The young woman cried, she wondered what she was going to do,” says Valérie L*., the social worker who took the call. “She went on to say that she was going to try people she knew. She wasn't at all critical. I'd have preferred it if she had yelled at me.”
Women forced to file a police report?
The situation started to become difficult around the country this summer. “Very clear instructions were given to prefects to reduce the number of places, with a selection based on vulnerability,” explains Nathalie Latour, a representative of the FAS (Fédération des Acteurs de la Solidarité) federation which brings together groups that help the vulnerable in society. “We've had a catastrophic summer.”
In Toulouse, the main city in the south-west département of Haute-Garonne, the prefecture stopped hotel accommodation for 33 women victims of domestic violence, with no alternatives being offered for them. “Thanks to local efforts, these women have once again been found shelter,” says Françoise Brié, president of the women's solidarity federation the Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes (FNSF). “But we've seen difficult situations in other départements. Sometimes the local authorities make good the shortfall.” On other occasions local associations have come together and themselves replaced the state aid, paying for hotel stays out of their own funds using private donations.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
“In our département the prefecture said at the start of July that the 115 [service] had to get rid of 70 places from the hotel accommodation provision before they could again put women who are victims of violence into places of safety,” says social worker Raphaël M. “And that in the meantime nothing would be possible.”
Mediapart has seen several of the directives from prefectures which instructed the associations to prioritise who they help, and which made it clear this would be monitored. In most cases victims of domestic abuse are treated as priority cases but sometimes there are conditions attached. In the Essonne département south of Paris, for example, women must have made a formal complaint to the police if they want to stay in safe accommodation for more than two weeks. In practice these instructions lead to “unbearable discussions”, says Rebecca T, a social worker. “Does a woman who's the victim of violence deserve to be given a place of safety more than a mother and her child who have just come out of the maternity unit and have no accommodation?”
'Emergency' accommodation that can last five years...
This tightening of the conditions under which domestic abuse victims can be offered refuge is nothing new, according to Rebecca T. and her colleagues. “Since January a person who's been the victim of violence can only be offered a safe place in the département where they live,” says Valérie L., who was unable to help one woman who had left the Paris region in order to seek refuge with friends. The social workers also have to fill in more and more details about the women's personal circumstances on the 115 helpline data forms. On some occasions women have been refused a night's shelter in an hotel because they have too many children.
In addition, the social workers interviewed by Mediapart say that “for years the lack of rehousing options has left these women stuck in specialist lodgings … so the emergency accommodation becomes medium term, or even long-term, accommodation”. In some cases women have stayed three to five years in an hotel.
The associations, meanwhile, still remember what the government promised them in the past. In March this year prime minister Élisabeth Borne announced the roll out of a major inter-ministerial plan to support women, under the heading “grand cause of the president of the Republic's two terms of office”. But the professionals on the front line now feel they have been deceived. “Four years after a summit on domestic violence and its fine pronouncements they're now refusing to put women in safe places,” says an angry Valérie L. “During Covid the government spoke a lot about intrafamily violence. The number of calls we took from women then doubled. But nothing happened after that.”
The gendarme was outraged that we couldn't do anything.
It is true that the state's budget to help abuse victims has grown since 2019. But if you compare that sum to the number of women who have been helped then “since the [summit] the money spent by the state per woman who is a victim of violence has fallen by 25%,” says Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Fondation des Femmes which has just published a damning report on the issue.
The ministry in charge of equality declined to talk to Mediapart about this issue. Meanwhile housing minister Patrice Vergriete's office was at pains to stress that there has “not been any reduction in the number of emergency accommodation places since 2027”. Officials stated: “We funded 195,000 of them in 2022 then 203,000 for 2023.” During her presentation of the government's 'solidarity pact' on September 18th prime minister Élisabeth Borne announced that there would be no increase in the accommodation numbers for 2024.
The violent consequences for at-risk women
Contrary to the prefects' directives – which could not be clearer concerning a reduction in the number of emergency shelter places - the housing ministry suggests that it is simply favouring more stable accommodation over the use of hotel rooms. This claim rings hollow with social workers, however. “In our département fewer than a hundred women victims have a place in emergency accommodation, while two hundred are sleeping in an hotel waiting for a place!” says one helpline worker.
On the ground, the government's mixed messaging can have violent consequences for women. Over the last ten days Rebecca T. has felt anxious each time the phone rings at her centre. Each time she hopes the caller is not asking for a place of refuge. Having to say no to a woman seeking help is shattering.
We find ourselves defending the hotel accommodation while also attacking how poor the conditions are there. But it's always better than a femicide.
One example of this was a woman from abroad, who has been married to a French man for a year, and whom Rebecca T. encountered on social media. “She's an educated woman, she educated her teenage son in the private sector. She became conscious of the major psychological violence that the man was subjecting her to,” says the social worker. The day that he first raised a hand to her she complained to the police and asked for a place of refuge. “The gendarme was outraged that we couldn't do anything,” recalls Rebecca T. “The woman was in bits. The gendarme managed to keep the man away for several days. The following day the woman called us in a panic. She had blocked the doors as well as she could. She no longer dares to fall asleep or take a shower.”
The social workers know that when a victim makes a formal complaint to the police or when they leave the home for the first time this generally leads to a worsening of the violence. “Not responding to their need when they've just confronted the aggressor really puts them in danger,” says an aggrieved Léa G., another social worker.
The social workers interviewed by Mediapart spoke also had to confess their powerlessness to one woman, abused by her partner, whose situation they had followed for several years. “A few weeks ago she finally decided to leave him,” says one of the social workers. “We offered her what we had: inappropriate accommodation too far from her work, which she would have had to quit. She refused. We asked her to be patient. She slept several nights on the street.”
Ten days ago the woman tried to take her own life as a result of the violence to which she had been subjected. “And we still can't do anything for her. Her own case worker even asked us to finance a place at a campsite for her,” recalls Raphaël M. “It was awful,” adds Rebecca T. “We find ourselves having to respond a bit like a machine: 'We can't do anything for you'.” Another social worker confides that she can no longer work on the helpline, knowing that she is unable to offer anything.
Raphaël M. recalls the case of one woman who, lacking a place in an hotel, had to leave her violent partner and return home to her mother, who was also violent. Faced with the refusal of help from the institutions the woman became mute. “We know full well that this situation is going to stop any possibility of working with certain woman,” he says. “We're running the risk that afterwards it's too late.” The social worker is torn when faced with the options. “We find ourselves defending the hotel accommodation while at the same time we have also attacked how poor the conditions are there. But it's always better than a femicide,” he says.
On September 19th this team of social workers were told, out of the blue, that they once again had the right to grant secure refuge for three women. “The 115 [service] told us that we had come back below the authorised threshold much faster than forecast,” explains Valérie L. “How? We have no idea. And what if we go over [this threshold] again? Are we going to have to work with this sword of Damocles hanging over us all the time?”
Nathalie Latour from FAS says that the lack of openness, of clear direction and of stability makes this a “serious” time for the sector. “We sense a massive weakening of public [services] and exhaustion on the part of the associations who help them. In the context of a housing and inflation crisis the government cannot take such confused and short-term decisions. It's very worrying for the future of social work.”
Meanwhile Valérie L. cannot rid her mind of the reaction of the last woman to whom she had to refuse a place of refuge. “So the way I'm living now isn't serious enough?” asked the woman. “In effect you're waiting until I get killed.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter